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Library of The Theological Seminary 
PRINCETON - NEW JERSEY | 
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FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER 
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BV 600 .A5 W49 1925 

The Inquiry, New York. 
Commission on the church. 
Why the church? 











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Why the Ch 


What Is Its Contribution to the 


Promotion of the Christian Way 
of Life in the World? 


A Syllabus of Questions for 
Use by Discussion Classes 


Preliminary Edition 


Commission on the Church of the Nenonal 
Conference on the Christian Way of Life 


129 East 52nd Street, New York City 


Distributed by 
ASSOCIATION PRESS 
New York: 347 Madison Avenue 

1925 


Copyright, 1925 
By R. E. McoCurtocH, for 
The National Conference on the 
Christian Way of Life 








Printed in the United States of America. 


Price, in paper, .60 each, 12 copies, 6.00; in cloth, .90 each, 
12 copies, 9.00. 


TH HPXPORT PRDSS 
NEW YORK 


INTRODUCTION 

CHAPTER bk 
CHapTer _ II. 
CuHaptTer III. 
CHaprer IV. 
CHAPTER V. 
CuapTerR VI. 
CHaprEerR VII. 
Cuapter VIII. 
CHAPTER IX. 
CHAPTER X. 
CHAPTER XI. 
CHAPTER XII. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


Why the Church? . 
The Church and Worship . 
The Church as a Fellowship . 
The Church as Teacher 


The Church as Teacher ured) ‘ 


Church Discipline 


The Business Practice of the Cretan : 


Church Growth 


The Church Serving the Garantie : 


Church Organization 
The Church and the State . 


The Church and the Christian Way of 


Life 


PAGE 


103 





INTRODUCTION 


The Inquiry 

This syllabus is issued in connection with an Inquiry that 
is being conducted in preparation for a National Conference 
on the Christian Way of Life. Responsibility for this phase 
of the Inquiry rests with a Commission on the Church and 
the Christian Way of Life. Three other commissions are con- 
ducting similar studies: Christianity and International Re- 
lations, Christianity and Industry, and Christianity and Race 
Relations. 

The National Conference 

The national conference will be held when groups through- 
out the country have become so aroused to the enterprise as 
to insure that it will be truly national and a real conference. 
It will aim to clarify and deepen the purpose of those who 
have shared in The Inquiry and to insure that whatever of 
value has emerged from the process shall pass into the normal 
activities of the civic, industrial, social and religious organi- 
zations of the country. 


Origin and Aim 

This venture had its formal origin in a resolution by the 
Administrative Committee of the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America, approving the holding of a 
national conference on ‘‘the meaning of Christianity for 
human relationships, with especial attention to industry, 
citizenship, and race relations in the United States, and the 
function of the Church in social and civic affairs.’’ A nomi- 
nating committee was appointed to select and convene a na- 
tional committee which should be wholly free in planning for 
the conference and independent both as to its findings and as 
to its financial support. 


; 
/ 


vi i Why the Church? 


A Fourfold Program for a Local Church 

It is hoped that many churches and other organizations 
will carry on a study covering the four phases of the national 
inquiry. This would involve the creation of local commissions 
corresponding to the four national commissions named above. 
These commissions would constitute central discussion groups. 
In addition to their own study they would also enlist young 
people’s societies, Bible classes, men’s and women’s organi- 
zations, and other such groups to which special assignments 
would be made. The central groups, or commissions, in each 
of the four phases of the study would collect and combine the 
results of the whole study and forward the same to The In- 
guiry. It would be most interesting and helpful if before 
forwarding their report the local commissions would hold a 
miniature conference and present their findings for consid- 
eration by the entire organization of which they are a part. 


Correspondence 
For the sake of brevity the National Conference on the 
Christian Way of Life is referred to as The Inquiry. For 
further information address The Inquiry, 129 Hast 52nd 
Street, New York City. 


How to Use This Syllabus 

Indwidual study and group discussion.—The questions may 
be used by individuals, and it is hoped that such use may be 
widely made, The best results will be secured through group 
discussion. In any case it is earnestly requested that the 
results be preserved and reported for use in the revision of 
further editions of this syllabus which igs now issued in tenta- 
tive form. These results of individual study and group dis- 
cussion will later be used by the Commission on the Church in 
preparing its report for the national conference. 


Length of course.—It is desirable that groups shall hold 
from six to twelve sessions. In the preparation of this outline 


Introduction ‘ Vil 


¢ 


the objection was made that it was too long and too elaborate 
for use by busy chureh people. This criticism occasioned real 
concern, for the enterprise largely fails unless the help of 
many of the people who constitute the rank and file of the 
church membership can be enlisted. The questions were re- 
duced, therefore, as much as seemed consistent with what was 
felt to be the need of facing squarely the pertinent issues that 
are being raised in these days. The impossibility of discussing 
adequately at any one session all the questions included in a 
single section is frankly recognized, and the suggestion is 
made that each group should select those chapters and ques- 
tions which it deems most important and valuable for its use. 
It is better to treat one or ttvo questions of each section fully 
than to pass hastily over the entire outline. 

Help for leaders.—Leaders of discussion groups on this and 
other subjects will find help in a pamphlet entitled ‘‘A Co- 
operative Technique for Conflict,’’ a little treatise on dis- 
cussion. It may be obtained from The Inquiry, 129 East 
52nd Street, New York City. ‘‘The Why and How of Discus- 
sion,’’ by Professor Harrison Elliott, can be had from the 
Association Press, 8347 Madison Avenue, New York City. 


The Method of This Syllabus 

The approach to the subject represented by this phase of 
The Inquiry is from the point of view of the average church 
member. This accounts for the absence of questions calling 
for a more extended historical and philosophical background 
or for the time and special ability required for research work. 

There are twelve sections, these covering for the most part 
the principal functions of the Church. After extended sug- 
gestion and criticism by many persons representing varied 
points of view and experience a set of questions has been pre- 
pared on each section. These questions are intended in every 
ease to stimulate discussion and not to call for mere affirmative 
or negative answers as to matters of fact. The last chapter, 


Vili Why the Church? 


‘‘T™he Church and the Christian Way of Life,’’ is basic to 
all the others, and its consideration has been left to the end 
for purposes of emphasis and for the more fruitful discussion 
that may be had after those provided for in the earlier 
chapters. 


The questions are followed by comment and quotations from 
current literature. It is not claimed that these quotations are 
in any sense authoritative, or exhaustive of the positions held 
by individuals or schools of thought, nor that they are the 
best that might be found. They are presented simply as illus- 
trations of what is being thought and said by persons whose 
judgment is entitled to consideration. They are not to be 
considered by groups as in any sense to be used as the source 
of their answers to the questions. Their sole purpose is to 
stimulate thought and to promote intelligent discussion. It 
is earnestly requested that all who use the syllabus will not 
only report to The Inquiry the results of their study for the 
Commission’s report to the national conference, but will also 
contribute to an improved edition of this syllabus and to 
future studies to be conducted by the Commission by offering 
frank and constructive criticisms of the questions and the 
method employed and by naming sources from which other 
and better citations may be made. 

Three other considerations need to be taken into account by 
all who use this course. Those who believe in the divine origin 
and the final authority of the Church may deem it superflu- 
ous, if not sacrilegious, to raise the question ‘‘Why the 
Church?’’; but let them remember that many sincere seekers 
after truth cannot rest content with authority or tradition, 
however venerable, but must examine facts, claims and values 
for themselves. 


The second consideration that all should have in mind is 
that this study of the Church is made wholly from the point of 
view of its mission as an agency to help forward the Christian 


Introduction 1x 


way of life among men. At the very end of the syllabus 
there will be found a section on the Christian Way of Life. 
Some may wish to bring this forward and to study it first. 
In any case, it should be kept definitely in mind as the central 
thought around which the entire study revolves. 

The third consideration that must be carefully regarded is 
the fact that for the purposes of this syllabus and the interests 
of those to whom it is primarily addressed, one whole point 
of view (if not one aggregate body of ordered conviction), 
has largely been left out of account. It is important to 
remember that for great numbers of Christians today the 
answer to the question which is the title of this whole syllabus 
(‘‘Why the Church?’’) could be given in a simple and cate- 
gorical fashion. This is not because they would exclude the 
various considerations that come up here for discussion, but 
rather because of the premises and preconceptions which in 
large part predetermine an entirely different method of inves- 
tigation and a totally different type of answer. Certain bodies 
of Christians have sustained the religious and cultural 
upheaval and revolution of the sixteenth century—as for 
example the Roman Catholic Church, and, in many respects, 
the Anglican Communion—or have maintained themselves 
through that period without any particular alteration in 
point of view or reconsideration of their fundamental posi- 
tions, such as for example the Eastern Orthodox Chureh with 
its sixteen divisions, and the lesser Eastern Churches. These 
Christian Communions have in common a view of the Church 
which, while it does not preclude discussion and examination, 
yet by its very premise reveals a different emphasis and point 
of view in regard to the whole matter. Any reader who may 
eare to know somewhat more fully concerning the notion of 
“The Chureh’’ in Roman Catholic thought, can be referred 
to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Wilhelm and Scannell’s ‘‘Man- 
ual of Catholic Theology,’’ or to Pohle’s translation of Preuss’ 


/ 
x 4 / Why the Church? 


‘‘Dogmatic Theology.’’ For the doctrine of the Anglican 
Church, typical expositions of the ‘‘Catholic’’ emphasis and 
interpretation may be found in Darwell Stone’s ‘‘ Outlines of 
Christian Dogma’’ (particularly chapters 9-18), his ‘‘The 
Christian Church,’’ and F. J. Hall’s volume, ‘‘The Church 
and the Sacramental System.’’ For the Orthodox Eastern 
Church the reader may be referred to F. Gavin’s ‘‘Some 
Aspects of Contemporary Greek Orthodox Thought,’’ lec- 
tures 4 and 5, or to Macarius’ ‘‘Introduction a la théologie 
orthodoxe.’’ How significant and fundamental the differ- 
ence in point of view of the Christians of this vast group, 
numbering by various estimates from 400,000,000 to 500,000,- 
000, may be easily suggested by reference to such topics as 
are treated in Chapters I-VI, where the divergence would be 
especially marked. The reader, student, leader or member 
of a discussion group must always bear this consideration 
in mind, in order to make allowance for this difference in 
outlook and compensate thereby for the limited character of 
the special considerations put forward in this syllabus. 


CHAPTER I 
WHY THE CHURCH? 


Questions 


1. THr CHURCH AND OTHER COMMUNITY AGENCIES. 
Make a list of the things your church is actually doing 
for the community. What other agencies are either directly 
or indirectly doing these same things? Is the church or 
are the other agencies better equipped for doing these 
things worthily? Which would you prefer to see doing 
them? Why? ; 


2. THE DISTINCTIVE VALUE OF THE CHURCH. 

Which of the things done by your church for the commu- 
nity and the world are not done by any other agency? If 
they were not done at all, what difference would it make? 
Compare what you conceive to be the distinctive poten- 
tial value of a church with the actual services rendered by 
the churches you know. Are the actual values easily and 
obviously available for all people? What is the real busi- 
ness of a church? Wherein do the churches you know fail 
to achieve their real business? Why do you think this is 
the case? 


3. THE CHURCH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 
How does the chureh actually affect individual life in 
making one a better person in daily human relationships? 
In meeting personal religious needs? If you think it fails 
to do so, state how. Do you know individuals who seem 
to show in their own lives the values they are getting 
through their relationships to the church? Are there in- 
dividuals active in the church who seem to you to be get- 
ting little of value from these relationships? Why the 


1 


Why the Church? 


gain or the failure to gain in each case? What contribu- 
tion does the church make to its members through direct- 
ing them to needs and opportunities for service? 


THE NEED FOR THE CHURCH. 

Is the organized Church essential to the production of such 
an aggressive type of religious life as is required for the 
realization of the Christian way of life in the world? Can 
you justify the Church’s continued existence and the pres- 
ent cost of its maintenance in time and money? How? 
If the Church as an organization were blotted out (inelud- 
ing its property, ordinances, organizations and _ official 
leadership) how much of it would you work to restore? 
Give reasons for your answer. Under what conditions, if 
ever, is the individual justified in withdrawing from the 
Church (or from a church) for the sake of better serving 
the interests of the Kingdom of God? Can the interests 
of the Kingdom of God be served worthily by an individ- 
ual entirely apart from church relationships? 


THE History oF THE CHURCH. 

What illustrations from the New Testament or from 
church history can you cite which may assist in answering 
the question—Why the Church? If you were convinced 
that the history of the Church fully assures both the 
necessity for and the usefulness of such an organization in 
years past, what present and what probable future signifi- 
cance would you be led to assert for the Church as a result 
of this conviction? Does past utility clearly presage fu- 
ture utility? Does the evidence seem to you clearly to 
show that the Church has a distinctive mission in the 
world which no other institution could fulfil? Is the work 
of the Church comparable with that of any other institu- 
tion? What facts would seem to you to assure the perma- 
nence of the Church? Would.such an assured permanence 
suggest a static condition or a progressive adaptation to 


Why the Church? 3 


need and environment? If the former, how explain the 
changing conditions within the Church through the years 
of its history? If the latter, why assume that any present 
feature of the Church is permanent and not subject to 
change? Do you regard the Church as an organism or as 
an organization? 

Comment 

The Church cannot be taken for granted today as it was 
a generation or two ago. Why the Church? is a question that 
many are asking formally and one that a far larger number 
are answering practically—and negatively—by simply ignor- 
ing it. An inquiry as to the Christian way of life in industry, 
race relations and international affairs cannot escape asking, 
‘‘What about the Church as the organized agency for ad- 
vancing the Christian way that we should wish to see pre- 
vail?’’ And an inquiry as to the Church and the Christian 
way of life appropriately begins by asking, ‘*‘ Why the Church 
anyhow ?’’ 

It is of importance that the word ‘‘Church’’ be carefully 
defined as it is used, of course, in different senses, and the 
discussion can easily become confused. The Church has been 
called the ‘‘one undivided living organism composed of those 
who are so vitally joined to Jesus Christ that they share His 
life with God and men.’’ Many other definitions might be 
given. It has been agreed for the purpose of this discussion, 
however, that we shall think of the Church as the aggregate 
number of professed followers of Christ who find organized 
expression in general bodies (the separate Communions) and 
in local congregations. When referring to the Church ag a 
whole or as a general body we capitalize the word. The dis- 
cussion group should avoid waste of time by making sure that 
this and other such terms are defined in advance so that there 
may be common understanding by the members of the group. 
On account of its manifold divisions there is nothing which 


4 Why the Church? 


actually and fully corresponds to the Church in the larger 
and more general sense. It may be that some, therefore, will 
wish to substitute ‘‘institutionalized Christianity,’’ or some 
such term, for this more general use of ‘‘Church.”’ 


The suggested approach to the subject (in the questions at 
the beginning of this chapter) recognizes that there are many 
agencies in the community that are rendering real service in 
human betterment. The case for the Church can be made, if 
at all, only on the basis of its having a distinctive mission and 
service. Let us deal fairly with this issue, remembering that 
the project in which we are engaged stands not for propa- 
ganda, but for inquiry. 

Probe your own personal experience and draw on the ex- 
perience of others to discover what the Church actually con- 
tributes to the making of better persons in social relationships, 
to the meeting of personal religious needs, and to the creation 
of better social institutions. 


The crux of this section is in the fourth group of questions. 
Granted that we need religion and that we need fellowship 
we must still consider whether the Church as a formal organi- 
zation is either necessary or helpful. Indeed, there are those 
who believe that institutionalism is the foe of life, that the 
Church is now standing in the way of Religion. Granted that 
the Church is necessary, it may be that only as it is greatly 
changed in its nature and in the understandings of its mission 
will it really serve the Christian way of life. Consider the 
significant economic questions involved, as indicated in the 
vast aggregate annual expenditures and the still greater sum 
involved in permanent investments. Consider how much of 
the present organization of the Church you would wish to 
conserve. Of course, it may be true that what the churches 
really need is a larger and better personnel and financial back- 
ing, and that you would wish to add to rather than to subtract 
from the institution as such. 


Why the Church? 5 


The following quotations reveal different points of view 
that need to be considered : 


Jesus does not seem to have wished or to have supposed it 
likely that His followers should form corporations, possessing 
huge wealth, achieving such power that they could impose 
their will on ‘kings. It seems wildly improbable that He antici- 
pated the existence of churches, called by His name, which 
in their eagerness for wealth and power would set His cross 
on the banners of armies, and in order to maintain His cause 
would resort to force, conquest, bloodshed and oppression. 
That, unless His teaching has been wholly misrepresented, is 
the very last thing He would wish His followers to do.... 

The development of the Church into a world power was 
inevitable. 

Unless the Gospel of Christ had failed altogether and the 
knowledge of His teaching had died out of the world, nothing 
else could possibly have happened except what did happen. 


The moment the Gospel won the hearts of men, as it did at 
once in all sorts of places, some kind of organization of those 
who professed to be disciples became necessary. Christians 
felt themselves to be, and were recognized by outsiders to be, 
members of a society. And a society must have rules, if only 
to settle who are members of it and who are not, and how 
members are to behave on the occasions of their meeting. No 
society can exist for very long without the possession of cor- 
porate property.” 


Institutionalism, it is held, tends to fetter the free spirit 
of religion. Miss Underhill thus states the issue and the case 
for the Church: 


That which we are now concerned to discover is the neces- 
sity underlying this conflict; the extent in which the insti- 
tution on one hand serves the spiritual life, and on the other 
cramps or opposes its free development. It is a truism that 
all such institutions tend to degenerate, to become mechanical, 
and to tyrannize. Are they then, in spite of these adverse 
characters, to be looked on as essential, inevitable, or merely 
desirable expressions of the spiritual life in man; or can this 
spiritual life flourish in pure freedom? 





1James A. Hannay, ‘‘Can I Be a Christian?’’ pp. 51, 55. 


6 Why the Church? 


This question, often put in the crucial form, ‘‘Did Jesus 
Christ intend to form a Church?’’ is well worth asking. In- 
deed, it is of great pressing importance to those who now have 
the spiritual reconstruction of society at heart. It means, in 
practice: can men best be saved, regenerated, one by one, by 
their direct responses to the action of the Spirit; or, is the life 
of the Spirit best found and actualized through submission 
to tradition and contacts with other men—that is, in a group 
or church? And if in a group or church, what should the 
character of this society be? But we shall make no real move- 
ment towards solving this problem, unless we abandon both 
the standpoint of authority, and that of naive religious indi- 
vidualism ; and consent to look at it as a part of the general 
problem of human society, in the light of history, of psychol- 
ogy, and of ethics... . 


I think we can say that the church or institution gives to 
its loyal members: 


1. Group-consciousness. 


2. Religious union, not only with its contemporaries but 
with the race, that is with history. This we may regard 
as an extension into the past—and so an enrichment—of 
that group-consciousness. 


8. Discipline; and with discipline a sort of spiritual grit, 
which carries our fluctuating souls past and over the in- 
evitably recurring periods of slackness, and corrects sub- 
jectivism. 

4, It gives culture, handing on the discoveries of the saints. 


In so far as the free-lance gets any of these four things, he 
gets them ultimately, though indirectly, from some institu- 
tional source. 


On the other hand the institution, since it represents the 
element of stability in life, does not give, and must not be 
expected to give, direct spiritual experiences; or any onward 
push towards novelty, freshness of discovery and interpreta- 
tion in the spiritual sphere. Its dangers and limitations will 
abide in a certain dislike of such freshness of discovery; the 
tendency to exalt the corporate and stable and discount the 
mobile and individual. Its natural instinct will be for ex- 
elusivism, the club-idea, conservatism and cosiness; it will, 


Why the Church? 7 


if left to itself, revel in the middle-aged atmosphere and ex- 
hibit the middle-aged point of view.’ 

Another summary of the gains and losses of institutionalism 
with a hint of its inevitableness is given by Professor Brown, 
of Union Theological Seminary, New York City: 

In this process of transmission an indispensable part is 
played by the institution. We saw that institutions are the 
means which society uses to protect its expanding spiritual 
life. Institutions perpetuate the life-work of individuals by 
creating forms through which those who come after may have 
convenient access to their distinctive message. They guard 
the spiritual gains of the past. They safeguard the nascent 
spiritual life of the present. Churches are the shells of re- 
ligion. They give social sanction to beliefs and practices 
which have proved useful. They set a standard by which to 
direct energies which without such direction might go astray. 
Without their help religion could not be perpetuated. But 
this service is rendered at a price. The shell protects the 
expanding life within, but there comes a time when it also 
cramps it. There are moments when the fetters placed upon 
freedom by institutional life are heavier than can be borne. 
There is then no alternative but to break the shell. But the 
newly-won freedom will not remain long unprotected. It 
must make a shell of its own in order to endure.’ 

Sharp differences of opinion emerge in the following quo- 
tations : ) 

It would seem far more reasonable to ask, ‘‘Can Christianity 
survive with the Church?’’’ than to ask ‘‘Can Christianity 
survive without the Church?’’... If all should come to 
realize that an official Christian Church by its very nature 
must be un-Christian, it would vastly accelerate the religious 
reconstruction which is in any case inevitable.’ 

The history of Christianity, with its encrustation and suf- 
focation in dogmas and usages, its dire persecutions of the 





? Evelyn Underhill, ‘‘The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today,’’ 
pp. 155, 156; 161, 162. 

’ William Adams Brown, ‘‘Imperialistic Religion and the Religion of 
Democracy,’’ pp. 60, 61. 

4Rev. J. E. McAfee, ‘‘Can Christianity Tolerate the Church?’’ The 
New Republic, January 18, 1919, p. 332. 


8 Why the Church? 


faithful by the unfaithful, its dessication and its unlovely 
decay, its invasion by robes and rites and all the tricks and 
vices of the Pharisees whom Christ detested and denounced, 
is full of warning against the dangers of a Church.’ 


It is a chief value of religious institutions that they intro- 
duce a measure of law and of discipline into what otherwise 
tends to become—and, except in the strongest religious spirits, 
I think actually does beecome—a somewhat fluid religious life. 
... In our generation the volume of discipline has been 
greatly relaxed. We see everywhere a growing contempt for 
all rule and tradition.* 


The veriest tyro in the history of the American colonies is 
aware of the enormous influence exerted by the Church in 
laying the foundations of the American Commonwealth. That 
work could not have been done apart from the institutions of 
religion. It was done not by the spirit of Christianity alone, 
but by that spirit incorporated in a religious system that was 
adequate to the social needs of the early colonists. The Church 
built the towns, erected responsible government, planted the 
schools, taught the Indians, extended the frontiers and created 
the traditions which remain today as the bulwark of our 
liberties.’ 


If any one has fault to find with the Church, and thinks 
it of no use, let him consider how deeply rooted its needs are 
in the nature of man. It cannot be destroyed. If it comes 
to an end in one form, it springs up anew in another. Cut 
down the old trunk, new shoots spring up from the root. It 
cannot be destroyed; for some sort of a church igs needed by 
man for his moral life,. growth, peace, comfort. 

The following references to the New Testament records 
may be noted in the consideration of the last question: Mat- 
thew xvi; Acts xiii; Ephesians ii, 11; iii, 12; iv, 1-16. 





°H. G. Wells, ‘‘God the Invisible King,’’ p. 164. 
“Dean W. R. Inge, Christian World Pulpit, March 2, 1922. 


"Raymond Calkins, ‘‘The Christian Church in the Modern World,’’ 
pp. 23, 24. 


*James Freeman Clarke, ‘‘Common Sense in Religion,’’ p. 244. 


CHAPTER II 
THE CHURCH AND WORSHIP 


Questions 


1. THE VALUE OF WORSHIP. 

List the reasons why people go to church. Which reasons 
represent their religious needs? List the reasons for their 
course commonly given by people who claim to believe in 
religion but who seldom go to church. In their case are 
religious needs simply neglected? In how far do you 
think their reasoning is valid? 

a. Just what do you mean by worship? Is it listening to 
sermons? Is it the sense of social unity in a corporate 
act of the praise of God? If so, why does God need 
to be praised? What purpose is served by ascribing to 
God qualities which, if He possesses them, He is 
already aware of? Is worship something you do for 
yourself, for your neighbor, or for God? Which fac- 
ulty of man is most employed in worship? Is it an 
attitude of the individual will in relation to others 
and to God or is it an intellectual recognition of the 
claims of God on ourselves and on others and a sym- 
bolic expression of those claims? How do the sacra- 
ments enter into worship? 

b. Does public worship contribute anything to spiritual 
development? If so, what does such worship contribute ? 
If not, why has the practice of social worship per- 
sisted? How is the value and effectiveness of worship 
to be measured? Is solitude to be sought for its pos- 
sible contribution to the life of the spirit as well as 
social worship? 


10 


Why the Church? 


ec. What reasons would you give for regularity in at- 


tendance at church worship? Are there reasons to the 
contrary? If so, what are they? Should there be 
greater adaptation as to time, duration and conduct of 
public worship to meet varying human habits and 
needs? In what ways? 


d. What bearing does one’s conception of God have on a 


sense of the duty and the nature of worship? For in- 
stance, would a trend among Christians toward a con- 
ception of God as immanent in all of life make for an 
emphasis on public, corporate worship or for a contrary 
emphasis? What of the view of God as transcendent? 
How does Christian worship differ from worship as 
exemplified by followers of the non-Christian faiths? 
To what extent does the conception of God held by the 
rising generation grow out of worship as commonly 
conducted? What contribution to one’s conception of 
God might fairly be expected to come through experi- 
ences attained by participation in worship? 


2. WORSHIP AND SoctAL ACTION. 


How far does worship as commonly conducted affect the 
attitudes and practices of individuals in relation to social 
wrongs? Is ordinary worship a sedative or a stimulant? 


a. Do people like to have the thought of human wrongs 


and world needs brought prominently into their wor- 
ship ? 


. Is there a felt need for personal comfort and inspira- 


tion on the part of the average attendant at public 
worship? Is or is not this the primary need of average 
folks with respect to the church and its ministers? If 
not, what is their primary need? Is or is not the need 
for comfort of soul amid the tragedies of life and the 
need for inspiration in the face of forces that seem to 
oppose or to frustrate character development such that 


The Church and Worship 11 


the planning of social worship to meet these needs is 
fully justified ? 

e. Is it desirable or possible to keep all mention of social 
questions out of church worship? If not, what limita- 
tions, if any, are to be placed on the treatment of such 
subjects? 

d. Would you say that worship is the main function of 
the Church and the promotion of righteousness inci- 
dental, or do you hold a contrary view? How would 
you state your position? 


3, CHANGES IN WORSHIP. 
What, if any, changes in the worship of your own church 
would you like to have effected? 


a. What parts of the worship seem of most value and in 
what ways? What are of least value? Does or does 
not the sermon seem to you to integrate naturally and 
helpfully with worship? 

b. Should or should not public worship have a greater 
effect on daily personal and social attitudes and prac- 
tices, and if so, how can this be accomplished? 


e. Should your church make a larger or a less use of 
ceremonial or symbolism? If so, explain why, and 
indicate what changes should be made in the conduct 
of services of worship and how these should be brought 
about? 

d. If you favor more opportunities for the participation 
of the congregation in worship, what forms would you 
like to have it take? 


Comment 
From time immemorial worship has been a major function 
of the Church, and sometimes almost its sole function. The 
object of this section is to inquire ag to what influence wor- 
ship has or may have in furthering the Christian way of life. 


12 Why the Church? 


Throughout the discussions it must be kept in mind that wor- 
ship is literally worth-ship. Divine worship is the ascribing 
of worth to God. 

The first group of questions raises the issue that one meets 
commonly in these days as to the possibility of maintaining 
a Christian life at its best without public worship. 

A well-known columnist, discussing compulsory chapel at- 
tendance in the colleges, says: 

Waiving the question of whether compulsory chapel fosters 
a spirit of careful, sympathetic examination, I deny that any- 
body ean profit by vicarious religious experience. The human 
soul must come upon these things in solitude. What others 
have felt and learned is of little use. Religion was not born 
nor has it been well maintained in churches. There was a 
lonely man who went out into a desert and knew spiritual 
travail. Why should we look to chapels and cathedrals to 
perpetuate His experience?’ 

Consider the force of St. Paul’s saying (Eph. iii, 18, 19) 
that you ‘‘may be able to comprehend with all saints what is 
the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know 
the love of Christ,’’ which may indicate his conviction that 
Christ can be fully known only in a fellowship. 

The Rev. Perey Dearmer, pleading for ‘‘The Recovery of 
Public Worship,’’ asserts ‘‘that we shall never succeed in 
preaching people back to church; they will come back to church 
only because they want to, and they will want to only when 
our services are more interesting, significant and beautiful.’’ 
He concludes: 


The people of Britain, of America, and of the whole world 
have already in their majority drifted away from the 
churches. They will be won back only if we make public 
worship so reasonable and beautiful that they come again to 
find their highest moments in it and to take delight in it. 
For this to happen we have to deal with every art now de- 
based in the service of God, to eliminate as much of the evil 





Heywood Broun, ‘‘It Seems to Me,’? New York World, June 10, 
1924. 


The Church and Worship 13 


at once as we can; and then to begin the very difficult work 
of reconstruction, gradually building up, not one type of ser- 
vice, but many, which shall appeal to all that is best in the 
wisest, most understanding, most sincere men and women, 
which shall satisfy the aspirations that all have in their desire 
for goodness, for beauty, and for truth.’ 

On the relation of the sermon to worship, Dr. James Den- 
ney says: | 

If the sermon in church is what it ought to be—if it is an 
exhibition not of the preacher but of Jesus—there should be 
nothing in it even conceivably in contrast with worship, but 
the very reverse. What can be more truly described as wor- 
ship than hearing the word of God as it ought to be heard, 
hearing it with penitence, with contrition, with faith, with 
self-consecration, with vows of new obedience? If this is not 
worship in spirit and in truth, what is?’ 

However strong Dr. Denney’s position, as just stated, may 
be, it does not meet the current objection to the sermon as an 
unpedagogical attempt to teach by exegetical monologue. 
Apparently the same kind of protest is developing against the 
sermon in connection with the service of worship as is being 
expressed in college circles against the lecture method of im- 
parting truth. 

Read the following quotations, not for ready-made conclu- 
sions but to stimulate your own thinking: 

Were we truly reasonable human beings, we should perhaps 
provide openly and as a matter of course within the Christian 
frame widely different types of ceremonial religion, suited to 
different levels of mind and different developments of the 
religious consciousness. To some extent this is already done: 
traditionalism and liberalism, sacramentalism, revivalism, 
quietism, have each their existing cults. But these varying 
types of church now appear as competitors, too often hostile; 
and not as the complementary and graded expressions of one 
life, each having truth in the relative, though none in the 
absolute sense. Did we more openly acknowledge the char- 





2 Review of the Churches, April, 1924, p. 211. 
> James Denney, D.D., ‘*‘The Way Everlasting,’’ pp. 104, 105. 


14 Why the Church? 


acter of that life, the historic Churches would no longer invite 
the sophisticated to play down to their own primitive fanta- 
sies; to sing meaningless hymns and recite vindictive psalms, 
or lull themselves by the recitation of litany or rosary which, 
admirable as the instruments of suggestion, are inadequate 
expressions of the awakened spiritual life. On the one hand, 
they would not require the simple to express their corporate 
religious feeling in Elizabethan English or Patristic Latin; on 
the other, expect the educated to accept at face-value symbols 
of which the unreal character is patent to them. Nor would 
they represent these activities as possessing absolute value in 
themselves. 

To join in simplicity and without criticism in the common 
worship, humbly receiving its good influences, is one thing. 
This is like the drill of the loyal soldier; welding him to his 
neighbors, giving him the corporate spirit and forming in him 
the habits he needs. But to stop short at that drill, and tell 
the individual that drill is the essence of his life and all his 
duty, is another thing altogether. . . . If the religious insti- 
tution is to do its real work in furthering the life of the 
Spirit, it must introduce a more rich variety into its methods; 

. it must give to them all its hoarded knowledge of the 
inner life of prayer and contemplation, of the remaking of 
the moral nature on supernatural levels: all the gold that 
there is in the deposit of faith. And it must not be afraid 
to impart that knowledge in modern terms which all can un- 
derstand. . . . In the last resort, criticism of the Church, of 
Christian institutionalism, is really criticism of ourselves. 
Were we more spiritually alive, our spiritual homes would be 
the real nesting places of new life.’ 

For an illuminating discussion of objective and subjective 
worship in which Roman Catholic and Protestant ideals and 
practices are analyzed and contrasted one should read Chap- 
ter XIV of ‘‘The Religious Consciousness,’’ by Pratt. His 
conclusion runs as follows: 

The Sunday morning church service, while often appeal- 
ing quite admirably to the moral emotions and convictions of 
the worshipers, seems to many of its best disposed critics and 





‘Evelyn Underhill, ‘‘The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today,’’ 
pp. 189, 190. 


The Church and Worship 15 


lovers to be lacking exactly on the religious side. The reality 
of the more-than-human, the relation of the individual to the 
Determiner of Destiny, the intense emotional realization of 
the Cosmic—these things are no longer suggested to us in 
church as they used to be to our fathers. Somehow in our 
smug security we seem armed against them, even when the 
preacher tries to bring them home to us. And the enormous 
throngs who never enter a church door are seldom reminded 
of them. ... 


It must be said plainly and first of all that objective wor- 
ship of the sort that aims to please the Deity is a thing of the 
past. The modern man cannot even attempt to participate in 
it without conscious hypocrisy. That is not the end of the 
matter, however. There is a kind of worship that is perfectly 
objective and sincere and that is quite as possible for the in- 
telligent man of today as it was for the ancient ;—namely that 
union of awe and gratitude which is reverence, combined, 
perhaps, with consecration and a suggestion of communion, 
which most thoughtful men must feel in the presence of the 
cosmic forces and in reflecting upon them. Such was the 
attitude of Spinoza and Herbert Spencer. Such was the 
genuinely objective worship of the ancient philosophers of 
Greece and India, and of many of the Hebrew Psalmists and 
Prophets. In this act of instinctive self-abasement there is 
no aim of producing an effect upon oneself; the attitude is as 
objective as it is natural. Worship is therefore not some- 
thing to be outgrown. Its forms change with the changing 
symbols, the changing robes with which man seeks to deck 
out the Determiner of Destiny. The thing itself is as eternal 
as is man’s finitude. The task of the Church is to stimulate 
and direct this fundamental human impulse, with what wis- 
dom it can supply.’ 


Dr. Robert Hume, whose field of scholarship is that of com- 
parative religion, says: 

There are three features of Christianity which cannot be 
paralleled anywhere among the religions of the world: 

The Character of God as a Loving Heavenly Father. 





5James Bissett Pratt, ‘‘The Religious Consciousness,’’ pp. 304, 
308, 309. 


16 Why the Church? 


The Character of the Founder as Son of God and Brother 
of All Men. 
The Work of a Divine Universal Holy Spirit. 
These three essential and distinctive features of Christianity 
may be stated systematically in relation to God, the chief 
essential of all religions, as follows: 


1. In God there is something eternal. That aspect of God 
which perpetually is the creator and loving ruler of human 
life may best be known as ‘‘ Father.’’ 

2. In God there is something historic. That aspect of God 
which has come most fully into the compass of a human 
life, in the gracious character of Jesus Christ, may best 
be known as his ‘‘Son.”’ 

3. In God there is something progressive. That aspect of 
God which like a continual companion is leading human 
life forward may best be known as ‘‘Holy Spirit.’’ ‘ 


Dr. Henry Hodgkin declares his conviction of how wor- 
ship relates to the service of man: 


The kind of worship that we need as a preparation for the 
Church’s revolutionary activities should provide for the recog- 
nition of our intimate relationship with men and women of all 
races and creeds and classes. This is found by many in the 
sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. The essential ideas of this 
form of worship seem to me to be the actual communion of 
the human personality with the divine, the use of the com- 
monest things of daily life (our food and drink) as a means 
towards this end, and the sharing of the privileges of life 
both outward and inward with all our fellows. Just as we 
are all one in our need of food and drink, and as our de- 
pendence upon these necessities takes away the barriers of 
rank and race, so in our common need of the divine life there 
ean be no dividing walls. Bound in one common life, mem- 
bers of one family, we have a clear duty to share our goods 
with all. The worship of the Church that is to bring 
about the Christian Revolution must, either through its sacra- 
ments or its silence, or both, contain this element of fellow- 
ship with all who suffer and are oppressed, whether for their 
own fault or not.’ 

~ *Robert Ernest Hume, ‘‘The World’s Living Religions,’’ pp. 


271-277. 
“Henry T. Hodgkin, ‘‘The Christian Revolution,’’ pp. 198, 199. 


The Church and Worship 17 


Professor George A. Coe says: 


To see life objectively, discriminatingly, and to reflect upon 
what we, with God, want it to be—this is of the essence of 
Christian worship. When we resort to the Church to escape 
from the problems and the perplexities of human society, we 
do not follow the Christ who ever takes upon Himself the form 
of man, ever becomes the servant of man. Worship as escape 
from this degenerates into non-Christian crowd estheticism 
or else into non-Christian clubdom.’ 


Professor Charles P. Fagnani gives his estimate of true 
religion as follows: 


The one only and true religion is the religion of the prophets 
of Israel and of Jesus of Nazareth. It differs from all others 
in its conception of God. The distinctive characteristics of 
this God are: (1) Positively—-His supreme concern for the 
establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, that is, co- 
operative human brotherhood; (2) Negatively—His lack of 
interest in worship, in fact His rejection of it, unless accom- 
panied by supreme devotion to His Kingdom. All other reli- 
gions make worship and manner of worship the distinctive 
and essential marks of religion. None of them insist on the 
reign of justice and love among men on earth as being the 
supreme concern of their God. It is the all-prevalent empha- 
sis on worship and specific forms of worship as being of divine 
appointment and obligatory that has divided mankind into 
hostile, hating groups and prevented combination for the com- 
mon good. The world-wide acknowledgment of the reason- 
ableness and sufficiency of the prophetic idea of God and His 
requirements by relegating worship to the category of a non- 
essential left to individual habit, taste and preference would 
remove the chief barrier which prevents the union of all man- 
kind into one fraternal group consecrated to the establish- 
ment of the Kingdom of God.” 





’George A. Coe, ‘fA Social Theory of Religious Education,’’ p. 95. 
®Charles P. Fagnani, ‘‘True Religion,’’ a leaflet here quoted in full. 


CHAPTER Il 
THE CHURCH AS A FELLOWSHIP 


Questions 


1. FELLOWSHIP IN THE COMMUNITY. 
What are the principal methods by which acquaintance 
and common interest are promoted in your community? 
How does your chureh promote good feeling and friendli- 
ness ? 
a. Among its own members? 
b. Between its members and the members of other 

churches ? 

e. Between its members and non-members of churches. 


What duty, if any, does the church have for the promotion 
of fellowship in the three relationships named? Is fellow- 
ship a major objective to be sought, or is it a by-product 
of some other condition or process? If the former, how 
avoid unreality in search and in outcome? If the latter, 
of what is it the by-product? 


2. CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 

Does chureh fellowship as you know it actually differ in 

important respects from the fellowship which other 

agencies afford? If so, in what ways? If not, should it 
be different, and how? 

a. What light, if any, does the New Testament give at 
this point? 

b. What light does church history give? 

e. What meaning and values are there for you in church 
fellowship that grow out of its long history and con- 
tinuity, its interracial and super-national character, 
and the claim that even death does not destroy it? 


18 


d. 


The Church as a Fellowship 19 


What does Christian love involve with respect to the 
promotion and maintenance of fellowship ? 


e. In what ways, if any, may the fellowship of the church 


eroup be an aid to its members in maintaining Chris- 
tian ideals in difficult situations? 


3. OBSTACLES TO FELLOWSHIP. 
What does the Christian way of life require of a church in 
achieving such fellowship where there are racial, economic, 
cultural or doctrinal differences? 


a. 


Do you know of a local church that fairly realizes the 
ideal of fellowship within its membership? If so, how 
would you account for its spirit? 

Should a church receive into its membership persons 
of different racial or national groups? If so, uncon- 
ditionally, or under what conditions? If not, why not? 
Is it necessary or desirable that people who worship 
together should also enter into a common social fellow- 
ship? Should fellowship at the communion rail imply 
fellowship in daily life? Compare the Protestant and 
the Catholic practice at this point. 


Some say that the Church should be a kind of labora- 
tory for the testing and demonstration of principles 
and ideals of fellowship which may ultimately be 
wrought out in the life of the world. Do you agree 
with this statement? If so, what changes, if any, should 
be brought about in your church? 

Do denominational divisions in your community prove 
to be a barrier to Christian fellowship? If so, how? 
What, if anything, can be done to change conditions? 


Comment 


The leader would be greatly helped in getting a_ back- 
ground for this study if he were to trace the Greek word 
koinonia (variously translated communion, fellowship) in the 


20 Why the Church? 


New Testament. Such a study would show the place of fel- 
lowship in the early Church. 

In ‘‘The Spirit’’ there is a significant chapter, ‘* What 
Happened at Pentecost,’’ by C. A. Anderson Scott, which may 
be summarized in the following sentences: 

The question still remains, What was the real, primary, and 
enduring result of the Spirit’s coming? And the answer 
here suggested is that the primary result which was perma- 
nent, and that which filled the interval, was what was recog- 
nized and described as the ‘‘Fellowship.’’ . . . It was a new 
name for a new thing, community of spirit issuing in com- 
munity of life; that was the primary result of the coming of 
the Spirit.’ ; 

A fair test of the place fellowship has in the later feeling 
of the Church would be the number of fellowship hymns to 
be found in its hymnals. The test of the churches’ practice 
must be made in other ways. 

The discussion ought to bring out clearly the meaning and 
purpose of fellowship, and should discover how much validity 
there is in the claim that is made for Christian fellowship 
that it is of a distinctive and superior quality as compared, 
for example, with that of the fraternal order. 

The Copee Commission on the Social Function of the 
Church raises the question as to what substitutes the modern 
church has to offer in the way of fellowship for the common 
life of the early Church as reported in Acts ii and ili or for 
the Church guilds of medieval times: 

We recall the days of the early Church, when the Christians 
had all things in common. We recall the later communism 
of the great Christian guilds and orders, when those who were 
bound together by a common Christian purpose or responsi- 
bility shared a common purse and a common lot. And we 
assert that though the times are different and the ideal more 
difficult of attainment amid the complexity of modern life, 
the principle of the early Christian communism and of later 
._ Christian orders still holds true. Christian people have such 





Canon Streeter and Others, ‘‘The Spirit,’’ pp. 136, 137. 


The Church as a Fellowship 21 


community of spirit and equality of standing before God as 
their one Father that they cannot, in principle, suffer each 
other to endure wide differences of fortune and hardship. 
Some today are feeling this to the point of experiment in 
sharing their resources with each other in little local Christian 
groups comprising members of various social ranks. The 
Brethren of the Common Table is a case in point, but it is 
by no means unique. We do not, in quoting it, suggest that 
such experiments in voluntary Christian communism might 
remove from our land the reproach of grievous economic in- 
equality and poverty from which it now suffers, but we do 
say that the passion to share material and cultural advantages 
(which they exemplify) is the natural passion of the Christian 
heart, and that we should expect it to manifest itself in all 
kinds of ingenious and stimulating ways until the social in- 
sight of Christian politicians and Christian voters is equal to 
the task of raising the level of opportunity and culture to a 
tolerable standard for every member of the community.’ 


Where there are social cleavages it might help in the dis- 
eussion of fellowship according to the Christian way to con- 
sider the problem concretely in the light of one or more of 
the following incidents: 





7C.0.P.E.C. Commission, ‘‘The Social Function of the Church,’’ 
pp. 184, 185. Mr. H. A. Mess, in the Preface to ‘‘The Message of 
C.0.P.H.C.’’, says: ‘‘The Conference on Christian Politics, Economics 
and Citizenship held at Birmingham in April, 1924, was an attempt 
of those Christians who were keenly interested in social questions to 
clear their own minds and to discover to what extent they were in 
agreement with one another and where they disagreed; and to put be- 
fore the whole Christian Church the social message of Christianity and 
to plead that it be given a greater place in the thought and activity 
of the Christian Church. In preparation for that Conference twelve 
Commissions were constituted, consisting of men and women with special 
knowledge of special subjects, but with different views and different 
experience in regard to them. These Commissions, aided by reports 
from groups of Christians all over the country, drew up reports which 
were submitted to the Conference. The twelve volumes of Reports form 
a body of Christian social literature without parallel in modern times 
in range of subject and in range of contributors. That they are in 
many ways faulty all of those concerned with them would readily 
admit, but they do represent the conclusions of a number of Christians 
who have given a great deal of time to considering together social 
questions in the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.’’ 


22 Why the Church? 


An Italian woman, a mother of nine children, at the end 
of her third lesson in English, looking wistfully at her teacher, 
asked : 

‘‘Lady, you Protestante?’’ 

‘*Yes,’’ responded the teacher, ‘‘and you?’’ They both 
waited while the Italian woman was struggling to find Eng- 
lish words expressing her meaning. Finally she said slowly: 

‘‘Sometimes me, my girl, in dark, go stand by church, hear 
sing.’’ She indicated a church building near her home. 

‘“Why do you not go in?’’ 

Lifting her shoulders and spreading her hands in an ex- 
pression of impossibility, she replied, ‘‘ Know nobody. Every- 
body look strange at us.’’* 


A Japanese man, repeatedly welcomed in a certain church 
by one of the deacons, ventured to accost him on the street 
one day, but was amazed to hear the words: ‘‘I’m your friend 
in church but not elsewhere.’’ * 


I visited a small Sunday school in a community made up 
largely of Japanese farmers. A couple of white families have 
been keeping the Sunday school going, and there the white 
children mix freely with the Japanese children. They ex- 
hibit an example of practical Christianity. I was told of a 
group in the community who did not like the situation and 
met one night to take the seats out of the church. One lady, 
a trustee of the church, gave vent to her feelings. She was 
through with the church, and she was not going to attend any 
more and be humiliated by having to sit near a Japanese. 


When a deaconess for ‘‘Italian work’’ in a church doing 
work among different nationalities with strict segregation 
was being urged to consider whether divisions should not be 
made according to the age of the girls rather than upon na- 
tionality since nationality divisions have been overcome in 
many social settlements, she replied, ‘‘Oh, but this is a 
church !’’ 


The wife of the pastor of a white church in a once fashion- 
able neighborhood now being entered by Negroes stated that 
problem in these words: ‘‘We are troubled about the social 





® Mary Clarke Barnes, ‘‘ Neighboring New Americans,’’ pp. 35, 36. 
‘Sidney L. Gulick, ‘‘The American Japanese Problem,’’ p. 170. 


The Church as a Fellowship 23 


ties which may develop between white men and some of the 
attractive young mulatto girls who come to the church. These 
girls are often well educated, and some of them can hardly be 
recognized as having Negro blood. A young man descended 
from a Mayflower ancestor has fallen in love with one of them 
and married her. Should we continue to encourage these 
friendly relations even when the results may be more of such 
miscegenation ?”’ 


Mr. J. H. Oldham, Secretary of the International Mission- 
ary Council, in his latest book, says: 


In a Church which is conscious of its mission to the world 
there can be no exclusion or separation on the ground of race. 
This does not mean that as a matter of convenience members 
of different races living side by side may not worship in sep- 
arate congregations. If there are differences of disposition 
and aptitude between races the genius of each will doubtless 
find its best expression if the religious life of each is allowed 
to develop on its own lines. There is nothing in this contrary 
to the catholicity of the Church of Christ. 


But wherever the separation is not a natural segregation 
but is imposed, a vital and essential truth of Christianity is 
compromised. It is not for those who are at a distance to 
pass judgment on what should be done where racial problems 
are acute. The difficulties in such situations must be acknowl- 
edged. Where masses are concerned progress must often be 
slow. . . . The attitude to be adopted towards it is not merely 
a question for that part of the Church where the problem is 
most acute. It is a matter in which the whole Church of 
Christ is concerned. The essential nature of the witness of 
the Church to the world is involved. The Church must stand 
for something in the world’s eyes, or it will be swept aside as 
meaningless. It is committed to the principle that in Christ 
Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free. On the 
Christian view the moral issues of sin, redemption, grace, ser- 
vice, brotherhood are so tremendous that natural differences 
lose their significance. The body of Christ is one. All par- 
take of the one bread. Take away this unity in Christ and 
the heart falls out of Christianity.’ 





5J. H. Oldham, ‘‘Christianity and the Race Problem,’’ pp. 262, 263. 


24 Why the Church? 


Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin, pastor of the Madison Avenue 
Presbyterian Church of New York, which is very inclusive 
in its membership, says: 

The ‘‘one class church,’’ in any but the very rare homo- 
geneous community, ought to realize that, whatever Christian 
service it may render, it is all the while doing the cause of 
Christ great disservice, and is in need of a radical reorgani- 
zation and an equally radical spiritual renewal into its Lord’s 
wider sympathies.’’ ° 

Radio makes it possible to hear sermons without going to 
ehurch. It may diminish fellowship. Or perchance it may 
introduce people into a larger fellowship. One wonders what 
this increasing development is to mean twenty-five years 
hence. An English clergyman, in protesting against the 
broadcasting of regular church services, says: 

I am not thinking primarily of depleted attendance—a 
consequence already alleged in some cases. The reply is made, 
of course, that the preacher’s message thus reaches a far 
wider constituency, and actual attendance at church is not a 
valid criterion of the church’s influence. 

The Sunday services of the church are the family worship 
of a Christian fellowship; and hence such services are an in- 
appropriate subject for broadeasting to all and sundry. More- 
over, the consciousness that this was being done would, for 
many worshippers, largely destroy the atmosphere of quiet 
devotion. There seems indeed more, than a suggestion of 
sacrilege in ‘‘listening in’’ upon the church at prayer. It is 
the ear of Heaven we seek to reach, not the ear of the world.’ 

The Rev. A. Parkes Cadman, D.D., does not believe in 
broadcasting regular church services. He says: 


When I was asked to connect the Lord’s Day morning ser- 
vice of Central Church [Brooklyn, N. Y.] with the radio, I 
declined the overture because I did not wish to interfere with 
the general worship of the churches. All denominations con- 
tend against a growing disposition to neglect the appointed 
ordinances of the church, and I had no desire to add to the 





‘Henry Sloane Coffin, ‘‘Some Christian Convictions,’’ p. 201. 
7Rev. Leyton Richards, Christian Work, May 31, 1924, p. 674, 


The Church as a Fellowship 25 


disadvantage which the situation creates, nor did I dream that 
my message could be as valuable for religious purposes as 
that of the resident pastor. In town and country he is the 
father confessor of his flock. No other minister can have 
the intimate knowledge of his people’s spiritual needs which 
he possesses. Nothing preventable, therefore, should inter- 
fere with his main contact as teacher and guide of the local 
communion. This view I have seen no reason to alter. I am 
fully aware of the widespread benefits derived from broad- 
easting the acts of worship and sermons of prominent 
churehes. But I cling to the opinion that the church is the 
place to hear sermons. There we also render to God the 
homage which belongs solely to Him. There we magnify the 
Name which is above every name. There we make inter- 
cession for a world which, alas! too often forgets to make 
intercession for itself. These observations do not apply to 
those who, because of age, infirmity, or any other sufficient 
cause are unable to attend church. They do apply, however, 
to many who violate their vows by their abandonment of social 
worship. I have not reconciled myself to their attitude, nor 
am I willing to provide them with any excuse for its main- 
tenance. The radio is no substitute for the church. 


With regard to his extraordinary experience in speaking 
before the microphone on Sundays afternoons, Dr. Cadman 
continues : | 


The radio does transmit the subtler essences of personality 
and so, of preaching. The spiritual atmosphere which is 
native to every God-seeking soul passes through this mys- 
terious means of audition. The persuasive religious senti- 
ment of the seen audience registers the edification of the 
unseen audience. Perhaps the greatest marvel of this miracle 
of modern science is its strange, inexplicable sway in the 
invisible realm. It has an indefinable power of wooing and 
winning the weary, the sin-smitten, the back-slidden, the spir- 
its troubled by specters of the mind. The voice ‘‘on the air’’ 
carries a peculiarly vibrant force, provided it is animated by 
the spirit of the living God. Dissensions are reduced, agree- 
ments are magnified, first principles of faith and morality 
seem to gain a more speedy and complete access to human 


26 Why the Church? 


hearts. Roman Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles, 
nondescripts, and those of no avowed religious persuasion 
give clear and convincing testimony concerning the lasting 
good which this audition communicates.” 


With regard to the larger problem involved in the wide 
use of the radio, Mr. E. C. Lindeman says: 


Upon first blush each new invention appears as a short-cut 
to the baffling problem of human adjustments, but if these 
short-cuts cause malformations in other directions they may 
eventuate as the shortest routes to destruction. ‘‘Modern 
science has split the anciently established order into a thou- 
sand fragments,’’ asserts Mr. Raymond Fosdick. The state- 
ment may be accepted; but how, one may ask, is science to 
rearrange the fragments into a workable unity? Is the unity 
of mankind to be sought in machines, in externals, or within 
the complex of personality functioning through the human 
organism? The former route is simple, easy and conducive to 
prophecy. The latter route is complicated, difficult and con- 
ducive to sober reflection.’ 

The last questions seem to require no elucidation. They go 
to the heart of the question of fellowship and the Christian 
way of life. Follow them all the way. Dr. Ernest Fremont 
Tittle discusses this question in a way that provokes thought: 

Would anything be so likely to convince a skeptical world 
of the integrity of the Church as a demonstration of the 
democracy which the Church professes? With magnificent 
rhetoric the Church has proclaimed the Fatherhood of God 
and the brotherhood of man. But, unfortunately, she has 
tolerated class distinctions and class pride within her own 
organization; and a skeptical world has looked on, sometimes 
with anger, sometimes with amusement, always with contempt. 
What if the Church should begin not only to preach brother- 
hood, but also to practice it? What if the most brotherly 
organization in town were not the Knights of Pythias, or the 
Elks’ Club, or Mike Fogarty’s saloon, but the Christian 
church? What if the Christian church should become a place 





8 Christian Advocate, January 15, 1925, p. 72. 
°H. C. Lindeman, ‘‘Radio Fallacies,’’?’ The New Republic, April 23, 
1924, p. 228. 


The Church as a Fellowship 27 


where Tom, Dick and Harry, together with their wives and 
children, could meet, not on the basis of an impossible equality 
which never has existed, and never will exist, but on the basis 
of a mutual sympathy and good-will which has not always 
existed, but might exist. In the presence of a Church that 
merely preaches brotherhood the world will remain cynical 
till the crack of doom. But in the presence of a Church that 
dared to practice brotherhood the last vestige of the world’s 
eynicism would be blown away, and the Kingdom of God 
would come with power in that community.” 


Consider the problem of a church one of whose members 


asserts that it has been ‘‘just about ruined by fellowship.”’ 


In order to promote fellowship they built a parish house and 
developed a social program in the prosecution of which three 
distinet social cliques appeared. 


The experience of unselfish living in a Christian atmosphere 
as a member of a Christian social group, is, in the last analysis, 
the one great Christian educator. To teach brotherhood, un- 
selfishness, democracy in textbooks and classrooms will be of 
no avail if the fellowship of the Church is unbrotherly, self- 
ish, undemocratic, indistinguishable from the life of the 
world. For then the most powerful educational influence has 
not been Christian at all.” 


The Copec report quoted above cites the Society of Friends 
as an example of real laboratory experimentation in fellow- 
ship. 

The Society of Friends provides us with a model on a very 
small scale of a community in which all are brethren and none 
is master, in which majorities do not override minorities, nor 
authority exercise un-Christian dominance, in which those 
who have prestige do not lord it over one another, and those 
who have vision and genius do not hustle their slower neigh- 
bors into speech or action for which they are not individually 
prepared. The spirit of deference one to another which they 
characteristically represent is indeed the Christian spirit— 





10 Ernest Fremont Tittle, ‘‘ What Must the Church Do to Be Saved??? 
pp. 28, 29. 

11 Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook, ‘‘The Teaching 
Work of the Church,’’ p. 43. 


28 Why the Church? 


and though it may not be so easily manifested in larger and 
less homogeneous bodies, we hold that it is the spirit which 
all Christian bodies need to exemplify in the conduct of all 
their assemblies, the transaction of all their business, the un- 
ravelling of all their conflicts and disagreements, and the 
exercise of all rule and authority among them. Only so can 
they present to the world such a model of Christian fellow- 
ship within a complicated organism as the world needs to 
bring the realization of a larger social and political fellow- 
ship within the reach of its imagination and its hope.” 

When the very last question is reached, test the entire 
organization and personnel of your church societies and their 
officers in the light of the demands of fellowship. Appraise 
the sin of snobbishness. Consider whether any new activities 
or methods need to be added to bring into the fellowship those 
who are on the margin of the church’s life or whether radical 
changes need to be made in the spirit of the church or any 
of its organizations or leaders. 

The failure of the Church to furnish a signal example of 
the fellowship for which it stands is noted by Bishop Gore: 

Christianity as it has appeared in European society might 
be commonly regarded as a dogmatic system, true or false; 
or as a system of ecclesiastical government to be submitted 
to for the sake of ultimate salvation; or as a national system 
to be more or less conformed to for the general good. But it 
certainly has not appeared as the organized life of a brother- 
hood so startling from the point of view of ordinary human 
selfishness that, even if it excited keen hostility, it must at 
any rate arrest attention as a bright light in a dark place; it 
certainly has not appeared as something which could purify 
society like salt, by its distinctive and emphatic savor, nor as 
something clearly in view and distinct in outline like ‘‘a city 
set on a hill,’’” 





20.0.P.E.C. Commission, ‘‘The Social Function of the Church,’’ 
pp. 186, 187. 

% Charles Gore, ‘‘Christianity Applied to the Life of Men and Na- 
tions,’’ p. 36. 


1. 


2. 


CHAPTER IV 
THE CHURCH AS TEACHER 


Questions 
EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 


If you desired to find a young person of twenty-one who 
must be trustworthy, mindful of the rights of others and 
willing to take his share in common tasks, and had the 
opportunity of securing one who had been a member of 
your Sunday school for the last ten years, would you be 
justified in feeling that the fact of this membership estab- 
lished a strong presumption in favor of the applicant’s 
having the qualities desired? Give reasons for your 
answer. 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL CONDUCT. 


In how far does your church provide instruction and guid- 
ance which enables children, young people and adults to 
see the moral issues involved in their daily conduct? How, 
if at all, does such instruction as is given help them to 
make Christian decisions in relation to these issues? Is 
education satisfied with conventional moral conduct, or 
does it aim at moral originality and sacrifice? Can the 
sense of God be developed through educational methods? 
If so, how? How are faith and hope and love promoted 
in the lives of people? Does educational method have 
anything to do with it? Has your church found the way, 
through any of its educational processes, to develop these 
Christian characteristics that are said to abide? 


APPRAISAL OF EDUCATIONAL VALUES. 


How useful are the following in helping people to dis- 
cover the Christian way of life in the concrete situations 


29 


30 


4. 


Why the Church? 


of daily experience? What, if anything, should be done 
in your church to make them more useful in this respect? 


Rreaes oe 


The service of worship, apart from the sermon. 

The sermon. 

The mid-week prayer service. 

Discussion groups, such as forums, etc. 

The Sunday school. 

Bible study classes apart from the Sunday school. 
The example, fellowship and counsel of the church 
members. 


DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 

Does your minister preach or employ other methods to set 
forth the great Christian doctrines or the historic creeds? 
If he has done so, what have been the results? If he has 
not done so, would you like him to follow some such plan? 
Why? Why not? 


a. 


What has doctrine to do with the Christian way of life? 
Does it make any difference what a man believes if his 
heart is all right? What is the relation of right belief 
to right action? What does one’s belief in God have 
to do with the quality of one’s living? 

In how far shall the minister’s authority be accepted 
on questions of doctrine and social ethics? What 
authority, if any, has the Church to teach or to make 
pronouncements, either with respect to right teaching 
(doctrine) or with respect to what is right in social 
issues and conflicts? 


. How did the doctrines of the Church come to be? What 


service have they rendered? What service do they 
render? What disservice do they render? What serv- 
ice might they render? What, if anything, is to be 
feared from teaching doctrine? 


. Is the Church’s task as teacher to pass on a certain 


content of teaching, to impart a point of view, or to 


The Church as Teacher 1 


help the individual to find his own point of view? Is 
it the Church’s job to expound truth already in hand 
or to search for new truth in the field of religion? Can 
the Church fill both functions in due proportion? 


5. LOYALTY AND F'REEDOM. 


When, in the education of children, and how, should they 
be encouraged to appraise and to criticize current social 
practices and institutions? 


a. Should education ever seek to promote unquestioning 
loyalty? Why? When? 

b. How ean essential loyalties be developed without sacri- 
ficing necessary freedom? 


Comment 

If it be true, as Mr. H. G. Wells has said, that the present 
world situation is ‘‘a race between education and catas- 
trophe,’’ and if it be true, as the Copee Commission on Edu- 
eation declared, that ‘‘Right living depends on right think- 
ing and feeling and that all right thinking means thinking 
rightly about God,’’ then this part of the study is of surpass- 
ing importance. So many questions arise that the subject 
has been divided into two sections, and even so it will be 
impossible to cover all the questions fully. Where time is 
limited, here, as always, groups must choose. 

The Sunday school has been for a hundred years the 
Church’s foremost agency for formal religious education. It 
has been highly praised and sharply criticized. The first 
question is intended to lead to an appraisal of its effectiveness 
in influencing the social conduct of adolescents. Face fully 
the implications involved in this question and still more care- 
fully the issues of Question 2. It may be that the religious 
education program and curriculum of the Church need radical 
revision if they are to serve more fully the Christian way of 
life. 


32 Why the Church? 


In the study of the second group of questions help may be 
obtained from Professor George A. Coe’s ‘‘A Social Theory 
of Religious Education.’’ The spirit of this book is indicated 
in the following quotation from the Introduction: 


Love as an inclusive law for education has not been worked 
out in theory or tried in practice. This is an astonishing 
thing to say, but it is strictly true. We have endeavored to 
include love within education as one item among many, but 
we have not taken it as the higher and inclusive conception 
by which to determine our aims and by which to test our 
methods. We have been accustomed to start the educative 
process outside of the act of loving, say in some dogma or 
religious rite, expecting somehow to get inside love at some 
later time. We have not thought of method as systematized 
love producing its like, that is, as the divine social order, 
already started on earth, and here and now giving children 
a place and an incentive to grow within itself. We have not 
conceived religious education as itself a part of the campaign 
for the social righteousness that the law of love requires, or 
as an actual initiation into the social relations that belong to 
the citizens of the kingdom. Rather we have assumed that 
the campaign for social righteousness is an affair of adults 
exclusively. We have even hesitated to bring it to church with 
us lest it should disturb reposeful contemplation of God. As 
if we could contemplate the Father without thinking about 
that upon which His heart is set, or as if He Himself could 
have peace of mind only by taking a vacation from the rest 
of the family !* 


Professor T. H. P. Sailer, of Teachers College, Columbia 
University, a well-known leader in religious education, passes 
the following general criticisms upon the Church from the 
educational standpoint: 

The four most obvious eriticisms of church work from the 
educational standpoint are as follows: (1) The aims of 
ehureh work are either not clearly formulated or not held in 


their relative perspective in a way that adequately controls 
procedure. Much that we do is based on custom rather than 





George A. Coe, ‘‘A Social Theory of Religious Education,’’ Intro- 
duction, p. 7. 


The Church as Teacher ou 


on intelligent purpose. Our expenditure of time and energy 
is far from being in direct proportion to the importance of 
the ends they pursue. (2) The content of the church activi- 
ties which we promote has not been worked out on the basis 
of intelligent and consistent theory. The word curriculum 
seems ill-applied to experiences so unsystematic as those of 
the average church member. Good food is provided, but little 
dietary arrangement is evident. (38) The methods employed 
are in general too inefficient and sporadic. Pastors often make 
their own lack of educational training an excuse for turning 
important forms of Christian nurture over to volunteers with 
no training at all. (4) The inherited machinery of the church 
is in most cases poorly adapted to the achievement of educa- 
tional aims. Even where large investment has been made in 
the plant the weekly schedule provides too little time for satis- 
factory results. 


If urgent aims were always clearly before us we should se- 
lect more vital activities; if church work were clearly more 
worth while we should be challenged to more effective meth- 
ods; if our methods yielded more manifest results we should 
create new machinery for them.” 


The Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook re- 
ports: 


If there is any one point upon which chaplains agree it is 
in regard to the widespread ignorance as to the meaning of 
Christianity and church membership. ... We might well 
hope that in a ‘‘Christian’’ country men generally, even those 
without any allegiance to Christ and His Church, would know 
what Christianity is. Chaplains say that they do not know. 
And they go beyond that and say that men nominally within 
the Church, men who have been to Christian schools, are in 
much the same condition. . . . The Church as a teacher has 
failed to instruct its own membership and present its Gospel 
to the men just outside its doors. . . . If we learn our lesson 
the result will be a vastly greater emphasis on our teaching 


function.’ 





2Hrom an unpublished manuscript. 
* Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook, ‘‘ Religion Among 
American Men,’’ pp. 14, 181. 


34 Why the Church? 


Commenting on this statement the Committee on the War 
and the Religious Outlook says: 

When one looks back over our forty years of relatively 
barren teaching during which the ‘‘uniform’’ habit was 
fastened upon the churches of practically every community, 
and when one realizes that the churches believed for more 
than a generation that this was all that is necessary for the 
religious development of youth, he begins to understand why 
it is that the cross-section of young manhood brought to- 
gether by the selective draft could be so pitifully ignorant 
and undeveloped in their religious life.’ 

Over against this, however, stands the testimony of Wood- 
row Wilson: 

No study is more important than the study of the Bible 
and the truth which it teaches, and there is no more effective 
agency for such study than the Sunday school. The Sunday 
school lesson of today is the code of morals of tomorrow. Too 
much attention cannot be paid to the work which the Sunday 
school is doing. 

Judge Faweett, of the Brooklyn Supreme Court, says: 


If we could keep the youth of America in Sunday school 
during the period of character formation, or at regular atten- 
dance upon religious worship, we could close the criminal 
courts and the jails. There would be no ‘‘raw material’’ to 
work on. And what is good for the youth would be equally 
salutary with adults. The sustained wholesome, moral atmos- 
phere imparted through habitual attendance upon Sunday 
school and church will expel criminal impulses.’ 

But Judge Lindsey, of the Juvenile Court of Denver, has 
recently written: 

The boys brought before me for theft come for the most 
part from the best day schools, the best Sunday schools, and 
many of them from boys’ organizations too well and nation- 
ally known for me to need to name them here—agencies, one 
and all, supposed to make men of them.‘ 





*Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook, ‘‘The Teaching 
Work of the Church,’’ p. 148. 

5 Quoted in Missions, March, 1925, p. 150. 

‘Judge Ben B. Lindsey, Physical Culture, February, 1925, p. 124. 


The Church as Teacher 35 


Discuss the third group of questions in the light of these 
criticisms to discover how far they apply to your church. 
The following further paragraph from ‘‘The Teaching Work 
of the Church’’ elaborates the problem with which this group 
of questions deals: 


All of the Church’s life and work, as a whole and in its 
various parts, may properly be tested and evaluated in the 
light of its teaching purpose. Does this or that item of its 
program contribute as it should to the realization of that 
aim? Is the preaching from its pulpit, for example, a discon- 
nected string of oratorical efforts upon passing topics of the 
day or such as builds people up in the knowledge and love of 
God? Does its public worship bring the congregation into 
the presence of God, and open their minds and hearts to His 
love and truth? Does it give them a clearer vision of what 
the Kingdom of God means for our industrial and social and 
international life and send them out with a new determina- 
tion to work for it? Do people come to this particular Church 
to learn, to serve, and to grow, or to be coddled in spirit and 
confirmed in their prejudices? Is its evangelism of the spas- 
modic, crowd-psychology type, or constant, sustained, and 
constructive? Does it merely ‘‘give to missions,’”’ or is it 
really interested and extending its fellowship, in intelligent 
and sympathetic fashion, to its brothers in foreign lands? 
Does its philanthropy involve paternalism or fellowship? Is 
its social service institutional only or personal?‘ 
On the question of authority, the Report of the Commission 
of the British Student Christian Movement on ‘‘Students and 
the Church’’ urges discriminating judgment: 
There are at least two senses in which the word can be used. 
1. There is the ‘‘authority’’ of the Church as a whole, which 
it possesses as the recipient and mediator of a God-given 
Gospel of truth and salvation. The exercise of this author- 
ity consists in the interpretation and propagation of this 
gospel. 

9. There is the ‘‘authority’’ of the accredited ministers of 
the Church. This would seem to be of two kinds: 





7Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook, ‘‘The Teaching 
Work of the Church,’’ pp. 42, 43. 


36 Why the Church? 


a. The authority committed to them by the Church to dis- 
charge for it certain special functions, one of these 
being teaching. 

b. The authority which they themselves acquire by the 
due discharge of these functions, the process by which 
a teacher comes to be recognized as ‘‘an authority.’’ 


Without entering into a detailed consideration of these 
points, this much may perhaps be said: The two aspects of 
the authority of the minister mentioned above cannot really 
be dissociated. True authority as a teacher can be exercised 
only by one who has striven to equip himself for the task— 
who has won his authority. It is the failure te realize and 
act upon this which causes so much discontent among the 
thoughtful laity. They are prepared to recognize the min- 
ister’s right to speak ‘‘with authority,’’ if by that is meant 
‘‘the authority of one duly qualified to pronounce an opin- 
ion.’’ What they cannot tolerate is the assumption of an ab- 
stract and arbitrary authority by one whom they feel to be 
really unfitted to exercise it. The minister, even the theologi- 
cal student, is right in asserting his claim to speak with an 
authority greater than that of the layman. But his claim will 
be acknowledged only when it is known to be backed by real 
authority of thought and study. And further, and this point 
cannot be sufficiently emphasized, his authority as a teacher 
will be really effective and valuable only when it is exercised 
not as a means of suppressing the thinking of his pupils, but 
as a means of stimulating and developing it to a higher pitch." 


While it may be undesirable that the theological contro- 
versy which has been carried on so vigorously within the past 
year should be gone into, there are basic questions in the 
fourth group of questions that may not be avoided. 

Professor John Dewey concludes an article on ‘‘Funda- 
mentals’’ in The New Republic with this paragraph: 


Looking at the present controversy from the outside, one 
may believe that it is thoroughly wholesome, humane and 
emancipating in effect, that it will make for tolerance and 
open-mindedness, greater sincerity and directness of experi- 





®Commission of the Student Christian Movement, ‘‘Students and 
the Church,’’ pp. 49, 50. 


The Church as Teacher 37 


ence and statement. And yet one may believe that it will 
not accomplish anything fundamental until the liberal pro- 
testing elements have cleared up their minds on at least just 
these two points: What is the relation of a specially organized 
community and institution like the church, whatever be the 
church, to religious experience? What is the place of belief 
in religion and by what methods is true belief achieved and 
tested?” 

In the same issue of The New Republic Dr. Harry Emerson 
Fosdick, reviewing Bishop Lawrence’s book, ‘‘Fifty Years,’’ 
says: 

It is evident that Bishop Lawrence was not driven nor con- 
trolled in his change of views primarily by a restless intellec- 
tual rebellion which insists on denying tomorrow what is be- 
lieved today. Rather his change of views was due to his 
expanding spiritual life striking out for more air to breathe. 
It was not because he had grown less religious, but because 
he had become more religious, that he became more liberal. 
The expanding life of his spirit, smothered in old forms, burst 
through them like seed from a shell for the sake of fuller life 
and larger growth. If we had more liberalism of that variety 
we should have less trouble with it. After all, what really 
- matters in religion is richness of spiritual life, and when old 
Opinions are cast off and new ones come because an expansive 
soul is erying for more room, liberalism becomes more than 
liberalism—it becomes a valid spiritual movement with some 
promise in it of abiding influence. 


To be sure, like all growing minds, Bishop Lawrence has 
trouble when his changing categories come into collision with 
the time-honored formulations of the classic creeds... . 
There is a rub that the creedal churches will have long puzzle- 
ment over before they are through. Shall they excommunicate 
men like Bishop Lawrence, who constitutes a strong tie 
binding the new generations to the Church of Christ? Shall 
they keep the old creeds as symbols, poetry, shibboleths, talis- 
mans, confessedly used without reference to their literal cred- 
ibility? Shall they alter the creeds and try, as Edward 
Everett Hale suggested, to make a new one every year as 





*John Dewey, ‘‘Fundamentals,’’ The New Republic, February 6, 
1924, p. 276. 


38 Why the Church? 


birds build their nests? Or shall they confess that creeds do 
not unite Christians but divide them and always have done 
so, and that the sooner the churches cease depending on 
authoritative formulations in theology and begin to depend 
for real unity on fellowship in a common loyalty and purpose, 
the sooner real unity will arrive?” 


Mr. Walter Lippman says: 


No creed possesses any final sanction. . . . It is more pen- 
etrating . . . to ask of a creed whether it served than whether 
it was ‘‘true.’’ . . . What we need to know about the 
Christian epic is the effect it had on men—true or false, they 
have believed it for nineteen centuries. Where has it helped 
them, where hindered? What energies did it transmute? 
And what part of mankind did it neglect? Where did it 
begin to do violence to human nature?” 


Professor William Adams Brown states the Roman Catholic 
and Protestant views of authority: 


The Church of Rome makes this its first claim. It pro- 
fesses to be the one true mediator between a man and his God. 
The Church alone knows who and what God is and can point 
out the acceptable way of worshipping Him... . It is cus- 
todian of a supernatural revelation which is wholly unattain- 
able apart from its aid. 


Perfect and inerrant as it was in all its parts, the Bible re- 
mained a sealed book, unless its meaning was opened to the 
reader by the Spirit. The authority of Protestantism is not 
the Bible alone, but the Spirit of God bearing witness to the 
heart and conscience of the believer that this book is God’s 
word to him. . . . Each man must read the Bible for himself 
and make his own independent decisions on the basis of what 
he reads. Each must pray his own prayer and expect his 
own answer. With each God deals at first hand. No one’s 
experience can take the place of his neighbor’s.” 





*Harry Emerson Fosdick, The New Republic, February 6, 1924, p. 290. 
1 Walter Lippman, ‘‘Preface to Polities,’’ p. 225. 


# William Adams Brown, ‘‘Imperialistic Religion and the Religion 
of Democracy,’’ pp. 66, 67; 122, 123. 


CHAPTER V 


THE CHURCH AS THACHER (continued) 
Questions 
1. Tue PULPIT AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 


Should the minister discuss in his sermons the moral issues 
involved in industrial, social, racial or international ques- 
tons? 


a. If so, should he deal only with ‘‘general principles’’? 


b. Can he be expected to know enough to preach on the 
application of Christian principles to large contempo- 
rary issues? Why do you answer as you do? 


c. If he cannot, how is that knowledge to be made avail- 
able for those of his people who must have some part, 
through the ballot and in other ways, in settlement of 
these issues? 


d. Criticize or appraise the average sermon from the 
standpoint of educational efficiency. 


2. Tue CHURCH AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION. 


Can the Church acquire sufficient technical and detailed 
knowledge to enable it to have a significant part in social 
reconstruction or must it simply develop good-will and let 
some other agency, or agencies, provide the social facts 
necessary to the application of the good-will to life? If 
so, who should discover the facts? How can this be done? 
How far is the Church responsible for seeing that the 
great needs of the world demanding sacrifice are met? 
What is the responsibility of the Church for providing 
vocational guidance in general? For providing guidance 
with respect to the so-called Christian vocations? 


39 


40 
3. 


4. 


Why the Church? 


THE STUDY OF SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 


What provision is your church or your denomination 
making for the study of recreation and health questions, 
race relations, industrial conditions and international 
problems in the light of the spirit and teaching of Jesus? 
What provision should it make? If you believe that your 
church should make more provision for the study of these 
questions, what steps can you take to bring this about? 
(See also Chapter IX on this whole subject.) 


MISSIONARY EDUCATION. 


Does the program of missionary education available for 
your chureh through your denominational societies meet 
the need of the church members for an understanding 
knowledge of the missionary enterprise in its world-wide 
outreach? What attitude toward the peoples of other 
nations and races seems to result from mission study? Is 
it such an attitude as will make for peace on earth and 
good-will among men? For a democratic spirit or a 
patronizing attitude on the part of those who share in 
such education? Do ordinary missionary exercises have 
sufficient force to secure volunteers for home or foreign 
service? Are these exercises presented in such a way as 
to render any action involving sacrifice likely on the part 
of participants or hearers? 


HEXDUCATION OF MINISTERS. 


In view of the conclusions reached in this discussion, in 
how far do the ministers you know seem to you to have 
the educational training necessary for helpful guidance 
in the solution of those social problems (racial, industrial, 
political) which confront the Church and society? Just 
what kind of training would you as a church member like 
the ministers now in preparation to have? 


The Church as Teacher (continued) 41 


Comment 

On the vital question of ministerial education with which 
this section begins there is now available the results of a com- 
prehensive study of 161 theological schools in the United 
States and Canada by a committee of which Bishop Charles 
H. Brent was chairman and Dr. Robert L. Kelly was secre- 
tary. Under problems of theological education this report 
Says: 

The expansion of the spirit of democracy is a startling phe- 
nomenon which the typical seminary has not taken into ac- 
count. Rare seminaries are beginning to appreciate the rela- 
tion of the churches to the problems of society. 

Shall the seminaries be content with the popular judgment 
that the churches which they serve are committed to the tra- 
ditional views of the ‘‘employer class,’’ or at best are but 
onlookers in the struggle of men for social justice and human 
understanding? Is there a practical, present-day exposition 
of what men should render to Cesar as well as to their fel- 
low men, with which the student-ministers should be familiar? 
Should the churches be allies of the government in its efforts 
at law enforcement and all forms of social amelioration? Shall 
the seminary develop citizens of the world? What constitutes 
the Kingdom of Heaven? Is it made up of elements entirely 
‘“other-worldly’’ in character? 

Some thousands of the captains of industry, under the 
leadership of outstanding Christian laymen, have undertaken 
to outline the future commercial policies of the United States. 
They appeal for the ‘‘square deal,’’ for righteousness, for 
honesty, for the spirit of service in business. 

In the same manner the bankers, the newspaper editors, 
the theatrical producers, the diplomats, as well as the labor 
unions, the socialists and the college students are formulating 
statements intended for what they believe to be ethical, if not 
religious, guidance. 

Democracy may well become, indeed is becoming, a ve- 
hicle at the command of those who would extend the Gospel 
of Christ to the uttermost parts of the earth. 

If what Mr. Bryce said is true, that ‘‘history testifies that 
free governments have prospered only among religious peo- 
ples,’’ the seminary has an inescapable obligation to train 


42 Why the Church? 


men who are to occupy places of commanding influence in 
the achievement among men of the New Democracy.’ 

Confessedly the second and third groups of questions raise 
grave problems for ministers and churches: 


The real strength of Christianity is in what it affirms and 
achieves; and the function of the Church is not police duty 
in the furtherance of a set of prohibitions, but prophetic 
leadership into the domain of ideals that warm and inspire 
the soul and prompt men first to love and then to do the 
right.’ 

Miss Vida Scudder remarks: 

If such matters have nothing to do with the Chureh, then 
the Church has nothing to do with righteousness. The hour 
has come for Christian thought to give definite sanction to 
the new social ethic that has been developing for the last half 
century. The check by common will on private greed, the care 
for public health, the protection of childhood and manhood, 
the securing of fair leisure from the monotonies of modern 
labor, form a program hardly to be called radical any longer. 
It is accredited by all the progressive forces of the commu- 
nity; it forms the background of respectable modern 
thinking.’ 

The same author says: 

In this new function of social guidance on which the Church 
is seemingly entering, she needs to practice very delicate dis- 
crimination. To get up a party whch shall fight to gain the 
endorsement of the Church for this measure or that program 
is an attractive short-cut to social Christianity, but it is a 
short-cut that leads to By-Ends’ Meadows and will end by 
plunging the Church into the morass of polities. ... 

[The Church’s|] work is not to announce new economic 
theories, it is only incidentally to approve specific programs. 
It is to insist that her children sift theories uncompromisingly 
in the light of Christian idealism ; it is above all to offer the in- 
centive which shall draw men to try the Great Adventure of 
Christian living in terms of the new age.‘ 


1 Robert L. Kelly, ‘‘ Theological Education in America,’’ pp. 230, 231. 

? Quoted by Raymond Calkins, ‘‘The Christian Church and the Modern 
World,’’ p. 76. 

* Vida D. Scudder, ‘‘The Church and the Hour,’?’ p. 53. 

4Ibid., pp. 22, 30. 


The Church as Teacher (continued) 43 


Dr. Raymond Calkins says: 


The Church will imitate the method of Jesus Himself. The 
Gospels contain little or no discussion of the details of the 
social problems of the day. Rather one discovers in them 
certain inclusive spiritual principles applicable to the social 
problems of His time and of all time. The Church, therefore, 
will not engage in economic debates or discuss controversial 
aspects of the social question. Instead, its message will pro- 
ceed from the circumference straight to the center. It will 
consist in a thorough interpretation of the reach and meaning 
of the spiritual principles of Jesus, and it will insist upon 
an equally trenchant application of them... . 


Neither is it meant that the Church will content itself with 
mere generalizations, and never directly attack existing social 
evils. It will denounce specific evils in our modern world as 
pointedly as the Old Testament prophets condemned the sins 
of Israel. Yet by holding in the main to the method of Jesus 
in His approach, to the social problem, the teaching of the 
Chureh will be delivered alike from the reproach that its 
spiritual note has disappeared, and its pulpit has become a 
secular rostrum for the discussion of ‘‘current events,’’ and, 
also, from the reproach that it is trying to discuss questions 
about which it is not really informed. Without doubt con- 
eregations do suffer from ill-considered and often really ig- 
norant discussions from the pulpit of social questions. Peo- 
ple are neither quickened nor awakened by such ranting.® 


Mr. Walter Lippman has this to say: 


There are many ways of serving everyday needs—turning 
churches into social reform organs and political rostra is, 
it seems to me, an obvious but shallow way of performing 
that service. When churches cease to paint the background 
of our lives, to nourish a Weltanschaung, strengthen men’s 
ultimate purposes and reaffirm the deepest values of life, 
then the churches have failed to meet the need for which they 
exist. That ‘‘hinterland’’ affects daily life, and the church 
which cannot get a leverage on it by any other method than 
entering into immediate political controversy is simply a 





5’ Raymond Calkins, ‘‘The Christian Church in the Modern World,’? 
pp. 77, 80, 81. 


44 Why the Church? 


church that is dead. It may be an admirable instrument of 
reform, but it has ceased to be a church.° 


On the question of acquiring the facts necessary to intelli- 
gent social action by the churches consider the proposal of 
Dr. Henry Hodgkin: 


But it is more than enthusiasm, even for suffering and 
death, that the Church needs. She needs knowledge. One 
of the first things to be planned by a Church that took her 
task seriously would be a research department. She would 
devote her best brains and large resources not to training 
men so that they could deliver moving sermons or write able 
treatises on theology alone, but to close examination into the 
actual facts of our contemporary life, the problems that need 
to be solved in our big cities, in industry, in agriculture, in 
international life, and so forth. Into such a research depart- 
ment would be turned the actual experience of church mem- 
bers the world over who were trying to face their problems 
in the Christian spirit; they would bring their difficulties and 
successes; they would show why business is not being con- 
ducted according to the Golden Rule and what are the real 
seeds of war. From such a research department would flow 
papers and books that would help towards clear thinking; 
suggestions for action by local congregations or groups of 
congregations; advice to individuals and information about 
those who were facing similar problems; plans for intervisi- 
tation from country to country, school to school, town to town. 
What object of research can be more worthy of effort than 
research into the problem of making this earth a place where 
God’s will is done as in heaven, and into the many noble 
efforts being made towards this end? Such a department 
spread in various countries would command the support of 
the very best brains the Churches in all lands could produce. 
If it were taken seriously it would enlist many students who 
are burning with a desire to harness their energies to a worthy 
task. It should be linked with the world-wide missionary 
movement already referred to, and it should be producing 
missionaries of the new social order, for many who began 
with research would wish to go on into active service, coming 





‘Walter Lippman, ‘‘Preface to Politics,’’? pp. 181, 182. 


The Church as Teacher (continued) 45 


back, perhaps, with richer experience to give further years 
to the work of investigation." 


The Copee Report on the Social Function of the Church 
contains this judgment: 


Much of the success of the work here recommended must 
depend upon the activity of a competent research depart- 
ment. We would not, of course, propose to duplicate research 
work that is already being done. It would be the first aim of 
any united Christian research department to put itself in 
touch with all the research work that is being done already 
and to arrange terms which would enable it to utilize all exist- 
ing work. But it is imperative that the leaders and guides 
of Christian thought should have always accessible on sub- 
jects of moment full and reliable knowledge of social facts 
and of the latest results of sociological thinking. There is also 
a distinctive sphere for a research department of the 
Churches. The subject matter here would not be the social 
need and agency which are the province of the scientist and 
the social reformer; it would rather be the ideas and inspira- 
tions, the proposals and experiments to which Christian peo- 
ple are being constantly led by their Christian faith, but 
which remain unknown to their fellow Christians, and, be- 
cause unknown and therefore unrevised in the light of wider 
Christian experience, are often comparatively unfruitful.* 

American Churches have such an agency in The Federal 
Council’s Department of Research and Education which is- 
sues a weekly Information Service, (105 Hast 22nd Street, 
New York City). 

Dr. Paul Douglass argues as follows: 

Just how important is it that the Church should make a 
point of contact with labor both by investigation and by ser- 
vice? How much of an issue is at stake in its desire to know 
about social questions and its effort to let the light of discus- 
sion in upon economic struggle? Good people there are who 
feel it highly improper for the Church to leave its recognized 
spiritual field to deal with these vexed issues of the working 





™Henry T. Hodgkin, ‘‘The Christian Revolution,’’ p. 209, 210. 
*0. O. P. E. ©. Commission Report, ‘‘The Social Function of the 
Chureh, pp. 157, 158. 


46 Why the Church? 


world. Why cannot such matters simply be dropped? To be 
concerned with them is to subject the Church to the strain of 
criticism and to the very definite risk of error. People do not 
like it when the Church criticizes their economic methods; 
while on the other hand, the Church is sometimes mistaken 
and has to take back its words. Is it not better, then, for the 
Church simply to stay out of the economies field? 


In order to justify the Church in taking these risks, let us » 
see quite clearly the function which it performs in American 
society when, for example, it reports on the steel strike. It 
acts as the brain and heart of democracy. It does the most 
necessary service possible. It puts into effect the only known 
alternative to revolution. And no agency is in so good a posi- 
tion to do this and still to be trusted by both contending 
parties.’ 


Mr. William H. Barr, President of the National Founders 
Association, in an address on ‘‘The Church and Industrial 
Problems,’’ delivered to the Church Congress of the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church, Boston, May 1, 1924, protests 
against the support given by eminent churchmen to what is 
vaguely described as ‘‘the demand for a new Christian social 
order’’ in which they disregard what he believes to be eco- 
nomic facts and says: 


There is prevalent in the minds of many outside of 
industry the vague idea that the term ‘‘brotherhood of 
man’’ means that the weaker members of society should be 
subsidized by the strong and as a result receive more than 
they earn. The fact remains, however, that the economics of 
the Almighty are more sound than the theoretical economics of 
many sentimental reformers, for the laws of economics are as 
much God’s law as are the Ten Commandments, and he who 
teaches unsound economic law is as misleading as he who 
_ teaches wrong spiritual law. The analysis and solution of 
economics have been studied seriously for a long time by men 
as well fitted to their task as is the minister to become a spe- 
cialist in the development of spiritual character. . . . I ven- 
ture therefore to urge upon your great body that you frankly 





° Harlan Paul Douglass, ‘‘From Survey to Service,’’ pp. 169, 170. 


The Church as Teacher (continued) 47 


undertake to provide spiritual teaching as an aid to economic 
leadership as your major contribution to the betterment of 
employment relations. I think our Church risks its badly 
needed spiritual influence by mingling with it the support of 
theoretical or even possibly sound political and _ social 
panaceas.” 


If it be agreed in connection with the last group of ques- 
tions that something ought to be done, the following consider- 
ations from ‘‘The Teaching Work of The Church’’ merit 
attention : 


The pulpit, allowing no opportunity for the give-and-take 
of discussion, has serious limitations as an agency for inter- 
preting the meaning of Christianity for such mooted questions 
as face us in our industrial, social, and international life. The 
fundamental Christian principles must, of course, be inter- 
preted from the pulpit but their more detailed application to 
concrete problems requires such an opportunity as the adult 
class affords for discussion with those who are having prac- 
tical experience with these problems in their daily life. 


Such a class may sometimes profitably adopt a ‘‘seminar 
- method’’ and make first-hand inquiries about the pressing 
problems of the community in which they live—juvenile de- 
linquency, the public dance hall, the influence of the motion- 
picture theater, the housing situation, industrial conditions. 
Or a series of addresses by men who are actively engaged in 
work for social welfare, followed by opportunity for questions 
and discussion, may bring the group face to face with ques- 
tions of their community life and lead to new insights into 
social duty. 


An enlargement of the influence of the adult class in deal- 
ing with social questions in the light of Christianity may be 
found in the open forum, now beginning to find a place in the 
program of the Church. More than the pulpit, even more 
than the adult class, it affords an opportunity for hearing the 
various sides of a question, and of securing the alert partici- 
pation of a large body of people.” 





10<¢ Honest Liberty in the Church,’’? pp. 327, 331. 
™ Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook, ‘‘The Teaching 
Work of the Church,’’ pp. 166, 167. 


ne 


CHAPTER VI 


CHURCH DISCIPLINE 


Questions 


GUIDANCE IN CoNDUCT. 


Should a church undertake definitely to direct the social 
conduct of its members? 


a. 


b. 


If it should do so in some circumstances and not in 
others, how shall it know when to act? 

Have communities a right to expect that the churches 
will demand or will induce in their members a higher 
ethical standard than that which generally prevails? 
For example, with reference to causes regarded as 
sufficient justification for divorce, and conditions under 
which remarriage after divorce may be approved. 


Have communities the right to expect that the churches 
will demand or induce a concern on the part of their 
members for the bettering of social conditions and the 
improvement of business practices? 

Do the members of the church when in grave perplex- 
ity as to what would be the Christian thing to do in a 
given situation (for example, in industrial organiza- 
tion, in a business deal, a lockout, a strike, or in time 
of war) naturally turn to the church for guidance as 
to the Christian standards involved? Give reasons. 
Should they do so? Why? 


CHURCH OPINION AND SociaL CONDUCT. 

In what ways, if at all, can the Church develop and express 
a corporate public opinion that will be a significant and 
helpful factor in the social conduct of its members? 


48 


Church Discipline 49 


3. ENFORCING CHRISTIAN STANDARDS. 
What shall determine church action toward members who 
are believed to have violated the ethical demands of the 
Christian religion ? 


a. 


Should a church exclude from its fellowship members 
who are guilty of drunkenness, adultery, lying? If 
so, under what circumstances and by what authority? 
If not, what, if anything, should it do with respect 
to flagrant violations of the Christian code? 

What, if anything, is to be done in case of members 
who engage in such things as encouraging war, water- 
ing stock, sabotage or exploiting workers? 


Should a church deal only with positive breaches of 
conduct or shall it deal also with negative unrighteous- 
ness, such as idleness, selfishness, ete. ? 


Should a church take note of the luxuries or amuse- 
ments of its members? 

What is the general attitude of people today toward 
the assertion of the right of discipline on the part of a 
church? Do you share in this attitude? Why? 


What bearing do your answers have on the purpose 
and present possibility of discipline? On the nature 
and purpose of the Church, and on its present place in 
society ? 

Would or would not close cooperation in matters of 
discipline between Protestant Churches be of value in 
developing right social attitudes on the part of church 
members in general? 


Comment 


It is commonly declared that church discipline has become 
in our time ‘‘a lost art.’’ It was at one time proposed to omit 
this section from our study because it was not thought prac- 


tical. 


It was retained because it is believed that we ought to 


50 Why the Church? 


find out whether or not church discipline should be practiced, 
and if not, to consider just how the whole question may be 
disposed of. | 

As in many other places in this study exact definition is 
needed. Discipline is commonly thought of as a process tend- 
ing towards excommunication. It should be remembered that — 
discipline and discipling are essentially the same thing. If 
discipline be thought of as looking mainly toward direction 
and guidance and reclamation, with excommunication as the 
last resort in certain cases, then the subject has a most inti- 
mate relation to the general inquiry. 


Moreover, a church’s policy as to discipline involves its 
theory of what the church is: a group of believers committed 
to a way of life differing from that of the world at large and 
held together by rather definite rules or ideals or beliefs or 
practices, departure from which involves separation from ‘the 
group, or an inclusive body of professed believers which in- 
cludes both bad and good that must be allowed like the wheat 
and the tares to grow together until the harvest. 

Dr. Henry Hodgkin sets forth a point of view that may 
serve as a starting point for the discussion of the first group 
of questions (particularly 1-d): 


It is commonly asumed that one of the great objects to be 
considered in this connection is the preservation of the purity 
of the Church. We can only include those who are admitted 
by a certain rite which is regarded by some as having, in it- 
self, a very deep meaning and potency; all must be morally up 
to standard and theologically orthodox; the Church must take 
proper precautions to exclude from her fellowship those who 
fail in these respects; otherwise her witness will be weakened 
and she will lose her influence in the world. 

It may be doubted whether this whole way of thinking is 
not dangerous and whether it really corresponds to the primi- 
tive conception of the Church. In any ease it is open to grave 
abuse. It tends to a narrow exclusiveness, a judging spirit, 
a certain priggishness and self-righteousness and a sense on 
the part of those outside the Church that they can have no 


Church Discipline ol 


lot or part in her life and activities. Let us be perfectly clear 
at the outset that with every possible precaution the Church 
cannot be wholly ‘‘pure’’ in this sense, that at the best any 
outward organization will be only a rough approximation to 
the real spiritual family, both because some of its members 
will not have or will lose the life, and because some who have 
the life will never find their way into the organization. This 
means that over-emphasis on the view just stated leads to a 
concentration of effort on what we can never hope to attain. 


But it also means that effort is turned into a direction by 
which even that end cannot be approached. For these out- 
ward tests of purity manifestly fail. Very often they frighten 
away the difficult but sincere spirit, and bring in the shallow 
or even the insincere. Church history does not seem to show 
any conspicuous success along these lines, and it shows a num- 
ber of very conspicuous failures. For the Church herself has 
martyred and persecuted and excluded as heretics some of her 
finest children, and given places of high honor to schemers 
and worse. 


Would it not be possible to use the aim of the Church as 
the rallying point in place of any credal statement? If the 
Church exists primarily to bring in the Kingdom of God, why 
not let her membership be simply those who are engaged in 
this task? Has any person not so employed any more claim 
to belong to the fellowship than a civilian to belong to an army 
in action? The simile suggests, of course, the immense range 
of activities that may be included as contributing to the main 
purpose. Just as those engaged in food supply, in coal-min- 
ing, in transport and in a hundred other occupations, besides 
the actual makers of munitions and members of the subsidiary 
services, are essential to the success of the army in the field, 
so, In the supreme purpose of the Church, there is need of 
many others besides the men engaged in direct propaganda.’ 

That discipline is always at least assumed wherever there 
is a Church is urged by Professor William Adams Brown: 


Every religion which has a Church assumes at least in the- 
ory some responsibility for the conduct of its adherents. 
There are some things which no Church can tolerate, such as 
the profanation of its temples, or the neglect of its ceremonies. 





1Henry T. Hodgkin, ‘‘The Christian Revolution,’’ pp. 191, 192. 


52 Why the Church? 


In those religions which think of the Deity as a moral being, 
the source of public law and the guardian of public morals, 
the Church is concerned with the daily lives of its worship- 
pers, and may seek to control these by church court or con- 
fessional. In mystical religions, where attention is concen- 
trated upon the relation between the individual soul and God, 
the discipline may be self-inflicted, and the assistance of the 
Church be given through the code of rules which it puts into 
the hands of the devotee, in his search for God.’ 


The acute problems of churches in industrial districts in 
time of a strike is set forth by Dr. Worth M. Tippy. After 
citing numerous examples of conflict in connection with the 
Railroad Shopmen’s Strike in 1923 he reports the conclusions 
reached in a conference of pastors who had the facts before 
them. How far would you approve these conclusions as a 
statement of the duty of pastors and churches in attempting 
to give guidance in conduct in such emergencies? 


It was the consensus of opinion in the discussion that the 
ehurch must have a first concern for the rights of the work- 
ers and the welfare of their families, and that pastors of con- 
gregations made up of strikers should espouse their cause so 
far as they can conscientiously do so, but that they should 
keep the mind of Christ themselves and exert their influence 
for Christian methods in the conduct of a strike; . . . that the 
use of Christian methods strengthened rather than weakened 
the conduct of a strike; . . . that pastors should not become 
partisans of hatred, vituperation and violence; . . . that pas- 
tors should insist upon their right and duty to minister to all 
their people, and that they should not allow men or families 
to be driven from the churches; ... where the right is 
clearly with the men, it was agreed that it is wrong for men 
to accept replacement positions, and that it is legitimate for 
the pastor to say as much; also to urge upon non-union work- 
ers the unfairness of accepting the benefits of labor organiza- 
tion without helping to pay the costs. The necessity of dis- 
covering a method of settling such disputes without industrial 
warfare aroused the deepest interest. ... 





* William Adams Brown, ‘‘Imperialistie Religion and the Religion of 
Democracy,’’ pp. 56, 57. 


Church Discipline 53 


To find a workable and Christian method of cooperation be- 
tween employer and employee, and to promote a larger indus- 
trial cooperation which shall include the state and the spir- 
itual forces of the nation, as well as employer and employee, 
seem to me to be the project to which the church should devote 
itself. The fighting will not and cannot stop until this is 
done. The fighting spirit, while once necessary, has become 
the greatest menace of civilization. A better, a moral and 
scientific method of righting wrongs and securing progress is 
being developed. It is the method of research and coopera- 
tion. If the church has any distinctive mission in industry, 
one phase of it is to persuade men to use scientific methods 
and to work together for social progress. There will be plenty 
of others to inflame class hatreds and lead the fighting.’ 





® Worth M. Tippy, ‘‘ What a Strike Means to a Church,’’? The Chris- 
tian Century, July. 31, 1924, p. 980. 


CHAPTER VII 
THE BUSINESS PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH 


Questions 
1. FINANCING THE CHURCH. 


a. For local expenses. Is the raising of money for the 
parish budget a matter that in itself tends to contrib- 
ute to the life of the spirit? Are methods used or is 
pressure applied that tends to discredit the church as 
a spiritual fellowship? What is the effect of raising 
money by bazaars and other such methods where buy- 
ing and giving are mingled? What is the basis of 
appeal for the maintenance of church work in a com- 
munity? If the community is over-churched, what 
effect does this have on the financial methods of each 
church concerned ? 

b. For general church benevolences. What real claim has 
a denomination on its local churches for hearty parti- 
cipation in church-wide benevolent enterprises? What 
contribution to the larger spiritual life of the local 
church may be expected from such participation? In 
what measure should the church-wide denominational 
agencies be responsible to and be guided by local 
church sentiment and conviction in the methods of 
raising and in the use of funds? Can or cannot a 
local church become sufficiently informed on great ben- 
evolent activities really to give trustworthy guidance 
to the denominational leaders? If so, what does this 
argue as to the educational program of the Church? 
If not, how can the effective giving of the local church 
be kept up, year after year, for objectives which the 
local church has little or no voice in choosing, and no 


54 


The Business Practice of the Church 5D 


adequate basis for evaluating the results attained? In 
other words, how can the democratic spirit in church 
life reach out into and become effective in the larger 
enterprises of the Church? 


29. CHURCH EXPENDITURES. 


What is required by Christian ethics in respect to methods 

of use of church funds? Should the standards be differ- 

ent than those prevalent in commonly accepted business 

practice? Why? Why not? In what respects, if any, 

are the churches following a different code than that of 

business? Will this church code, written or unwritten, 
- stand scrutiny? 


3. THe EXAMPLE OF THE CHURCH. 


Do the churches as you know them in their business prac- 
tices as employer, landlord, creditor or debtor set Chris- 
tian standards for related community practices in busi- 
ness and industry? 


4. DESIRABLE CHANGES. 


What changes, if any, seem to you to be required in the 
business practices of your church in relation to the fore- 
going questions of this section? 


Comment 

The questions submitted in connection with this section are 
few but they will in most groups be found to be sufficiently 
‘“live’’ to occupy all the time available. It might be well to 
begin with a review and appraisal of the methods of raising 
money that are being employed by the local church and its 
organizations. Follow this with a similar study of the finan- 
cial methods of denominational and other organizations that 
are appealing to the local churches. If in any respect the ap- 
peals seem to have an unfavorable influence, search carefully 
for the causes whether these be in the methods employed, in 


56 Why the Church? 


the resistance of the ungenerous individual, or in lack of chal- 
lenging appeal in the causes presented. 

This study ought to open up for discussion the whole ques- 
tion of stewardship so largely emphasized today by denomina- 
tional organizations. The group should define stewardship 
for itself, considering what it means toward God and one’s 
fellow men, and asking whether or not partnership is a better 
term to describe the ideal relationship. 


The question of tithing and the arguments used to promote 
it should be fully canvassed. From a widely circulated pam- 
phlet, ‘‘What We Owe and Why We Owe It,’’ by ‘‘A Lay- 
man,’’ the following quotation is taken: 

It would seem ineredible that God would put into any hu- 
man soul, enlightened or unenlightened, a distinct sense of 
duty and obligation and then give no standard or measure by 
which it may be known when the duty is performed. The 
real question resolves itself down to this: Is the Tithe, the 
tenth of income, a moral institution based on the needs of 
human nature, defined by a moral law, which is still binding, 
just as the law of the Sabbath, the seventh of time, is still 
binding, or was it a mere ritual law, beginning and ending 
with the Mosaic economy?’ 

On the other hand, Dr. Rauschenbusch says: 

We all understand that a man receiving $500 a year cannot 
pay as much to religious institutions as a man receiving 
$5,000, but the universal impression seems to be that he can 
fairly be expected to contribute the same proportion of his 
income. The Old Testament law of tithing is very generally 
recommended as the ideal to be followed by all, on the sup- 
position that ten per cent of an income of $500 is the same 
proportion as ten per cent of an income of $5,000. This com- 
mercial method of calculation leaves some fundamental facts 
of human nature out of account and has inflicted a grave 
wrong on the poorer portion of our churches... . 

If, then, any average wage-earner in the churches has ac- 
tually given a tenth of his income, he deserves profound re- 
spect. It is heroic giving for him. And if we have allowed 





1A Layman, ‘‘What We Owe and Why We Owe It.’’ 


The Business Practice of the Church 57 


the impression to prevail that the giving of one-tenth by all 
was equal giving for all, we have unwittingly inflicted a 
grievous injustice on the poorer church members. 


In every church working among the poorer classes there 
are a number who contribute nothing or are dependents of 
the church instead of supporters. Every season of economic 
distress depresses additional families below this line. But 
some self-respecting people may choose a different line of 
action. If their church membership involves too heavy a 
tax, they drop away. Other causes and motives may work 
in the same direction, but the pressure exerted by the sys- 
tematized giving of the modern church, and the insistence on 
this virtue in pulpit teaching, must alienate some. They simply 
eannot afford church life. The fraternal societies, which offer 
insurance and mutual help in sickness and death, have in- 
creased immensely among the wage-earners, while the Church 
eonfessedly has lost ground among them. Is this due merely 
to religious indifference and unbelief, or to poverty coupled 
with self-respect ? * 


Dr. Kresge discusses a problem which every church needs 
to consider in developing its financial policy: 


The great majority of erasures from our list of membership, 
so far as I have been able to discover, are for non-payment 
of dues. Here is our greatest leakage. In the majority of 
these cases there is, no doubt, a moral reason back of the 
financial delinquency. Most of these people could pay their 
church dues if they cared to do so. But, on the other hand, 
there are many good and honest people who will not join the 
church, and others who have left the church, because they 
need every cent of their meager income for the daily neces- 
sities of life. Reliable investigations of the distribution of 
income have surprised us with the revelation that fully one- 
fourth of all the families of the United States, during the 
decade or two before the war, were living on less than $600 
a year. Every large community in rich America has many 
families—good, honest families—who cannot afford to pay 
the dues and the extra benevolence which the church requires 
of her members without denying themselves some of the vital 





2 Walter Rauschenbusch, ‘‘Christianity and the Social Crisis,’’ pp. 
292-294. 


58 Why the Church? 


necessities. And I refuse to cast the first stone at the man 
who uses the tithe of a $600 or $700 income to buy an extra 
bottle of milk for his babies or a new hat for his wife, rather 
than give it to the church.’ 


The question of raising money has become an acute one in 
one large Board because of the charge by a member of its - 
staff that it was raising its money on the basis of one kind 
of appeal and spending funds raised on other phases of its 
work which might not be very heartily approved by the giv- 
ing constituency : 


Protestant churches of the major denominations are raising 
their home mission money for one purpose and spending a 
goodly proportion of it for another. They are raising it on 
the appeal of the spiritual and social needs of the immigrants 
and the Southern mountaineers, the Negroes and the Mexi- 
cans, the Alaskans and the Indians, of other needy and neg- 
lected peoples. They are spending a proportion of that 
money in establishing or maintaining denominational 
churches in rural communities, already over-churched. The 
economic waste and the social sin of competing denominations 
in small towns and cities have been denounced for decades 
by the churches themselves. Yet they are feeding that de- 
nominational competition with home mission aid today. And 
that aid is raised for another purpose.’ 


Mr. Eastman is careful to state that he knows of no mis- 
use of designated funds. Be sure that the issue is clear: 


Let there be no misunderstanding here. If any layman 
sends to a board of home missions of any of the major de- 
nominations a contribution specifically designating in writing 
that it shall be used only for a certain mission or a specific 
field, his instructions will be honored or the money returned. 
To the best of my knowledge and belief all denominational 
boards endeavor to carry out sacredly the wishes of their 
contributors, when the contributors put in writing their 
specific requests. 





* Elijah E. Kresge, ‘‘The Church and the Ever-coming Kingdom of 
God,’’ pp. 160, 161. 

“Fred Eastman, ‘‘What the Left Hand Doeth,’’ Survey Graphic, 
June, 1924, p. 271. 


The Business Practice of the Church 59 


And much, if not all, of the contributions to the women’s 
boards are in this designated class. But the greater bulk of 
home mission money comes not from the women’s organiza- 
tions, but from the churches through their regular benevo- 
lence budgets and is undesignated. Why should not this un- 
designated money be as sacredly guarded as the other? It is 
just as much the product of sacrifice. Gifts contributed in 
response to the promotional appeal of home missions, whether 
that appeal comes through a pastor or a board secretary, 
ought not to have to be specifically labelled in order to have 
the church spend them along the lines of that appeal.’ 


The Rev. Dr. A. W. Anthony, former secretary of the 
Home Missions Council, makes a strong reply in The Survey 
for July 15, 1924 (p. 475), but not to the satisfaction of Mr. 
Eastman, whose short rebuttal is appended to Dr. Anthony’s 
article. The article quoted from above and Dr. Anthony’s 
reply should both be read for the full statement of the 
problem. 





8 Ibid., p. 278. 


CHAPTER VIII 


CHURCH GROWTH 


Questions 
1. EVANGELISTIC METHOD. 


What motives should actuate the church in seeking to add 
to its membership? Are these the motives that are actually 
at work? If not, how explain the motives that are func- 
tioning? What has the church to offer as inducements to 
membership? Why are not these inducements effective 
with a larger number of people? What methods does 
your church employ to secure its recruits? In what ways 
would you like to see these methods changed? What are 
the various reasons why more or less earnest types of 
people are uninterested in church attendance and ac- 
tivities? 


2. THe NEw MEMBER. 

In what ways, if any, is it expected in your community 
that one who has joined the church will live differently 
from another who has not? In what ways is church mem- 
bership explained to candidates? What tests are put to 
them? What is actually required in becoming a member 
so far as a way of life is concerned? How far is the test 
based on the acceptance of certain convictions and the 

» practice of certain ‘‘religious habits’’? To what extent 
does it deal with purposes and motives? What should be 
the minimum requirements? How many of the following 
would you insist upon? 


a. Upon acceptance of historic creedal statements? 
b. Upon a promised loyalty to the organization? 
60 


Church Growth 61 


ce. Upon a declared purpose to support the organization 
financially ? . 


d. Upon a declared purpose to participate in the various 
activities and enterprises of the church? 

e. Upon participation in some formal initiation into 
ehureh fellowship ? 


f. Upon a declared purpose to inquire into Christian 
ideals for living, and so far as may be, when these are 
discovered, to seek to live thereby? 


g. Upon a declaration of faith? 


CHurcH WoRK IN ALIEN COMMUNITIES. 

Do non-church members in your community object to 
Protestant churches carrying on either evangelistic or 
community service activities in neighborhoods prevailingly 
Roman Catholic or Jewish? Is there any objection on 
similar grounds to the foreign mission enterprise? What 
validity is there, if any, in such objections? 


CHURCH GROWTH AND WORLD TRANSFORMATION. 


Is your church primarily interested in self-maintenance 
and self-development, or does it exist to create a new world 
society? What is the relation between these two ideals? 
How may the Church defend itself against the charge of 
selfishness and propagandism in its extension work? 
Could a church recruit people for membership in the 
Kingdom of God and yet be indifferent as to additions to 
its own membership? Could the Church in its foreign 
mission work be indifferent to increase of formal church 
membership? Why? Why not? 


. PossIBLE CHANGES. 


What changes, if any, in receiving and instructing its 
members would have to take place in your own church if 
membership is to have its richest meaning? If you think 


62 Why the Church? 


that there should be changes, what, if anything, would be 
likely to happen if such changes were made? Could these 
changes be brought about? If not, why not? If so, how? 


Comment 
No section of our inquiry calls for more careful unbiased 
study than this one. We need to revaluate our evangelism in 
the light of the Christian way of life. Dr. Alva W. Taylor 
has said some things in a leaflet on ‘‘Social Evangelism’’ that 
will give any group help in starting a discussion of the first 
group of questions. He begins thus: 


A church held a great meeting. 
It won many; many it did not win. 
It did an unheard-of thing; it investigated why. 
The Gospel was the power unto salvation, they said. 
Yet that power had failed to reach many. 
It had been powerfully preached and winsomely sung. 
Kvidently something was needed besides preaching. 
They had talked with and prayed for many in vain. 
Evidently something besides personal work was needed. 
They found few men past thirty-five had been won. 
They concluded the man must be saved while a boy in the 
Sunday school. 
But they found few boys past fifteen in the Sunday school. 
And they found many boys in the town. 
They found another town getting them with the Boy Scouts. 
And another with the Junior Y.M.C. A. 
And another with organized paseball. 
And others in other ways that the boys liked. 
And they said we will get them too—and they did. 
All it needed was a man and a plan. 
So they added a social service to their evangelism. 
Dr. Taylor concludes thus: 


Within a year he found many revival meeting converts back- 
sliding. 

The revivalist said it was the fault of pastoral oversight. 

Some of the church officers believed him. 

The pastor asked them to come with him and investigate. 

They found some had emotional natures; the soil was thin. 

They found some had no foundation in religious education. 


Church Growth 63 


They ery worldliness could not be cured in a three weeks’ 
appeal. 

They found some in homes where no one but a saint could be 
a Christian. 

Some told them they earnestly tried, but life was too hard. 

Others wept and asked how religion could live in their evil 
neighborhood. 

Some went back to the saloon and pool-hall and answered 
with silence. 

The pastor was cleared by the officers. 

But he convicted himself for not preaching a social message. 

He asked himself why pastors had not united to clean up the 
community. 

He said to himself, ‘‘I have found a new predestination.”’ 

It was a foredooming and foredamning of people by the place 
they were born in and lived in. 

So he led his church to forget itself in service of its com- 
munity. 

They turned from sectarianism to religion of the ‘‘pure and 
undefiled’’ type. 

They found some church machinery that took power and 
brought no grist. | 

They found some new inventions and attached them to the 
Gospel’s power. 

They added social salvation to personal salvation. 

And that church grew without pride, but the Kingdom grew 
more. 


Professor Coe states a point of view on evangelistic method 
that is worthy of consideration: 


The most fundamental thing in education is its constant 
reconstruction of purposes. Christian education, when it is 
really social, is through and through an incoming of the 
higher life, a renewing of the mind, a laying aside of lower 
selves. If, then, one of our pupils has already formed such 
perverse purposes that his present need is conversion, we are 
still to proceed as educators. We should never turn an ado- 
lescent over to uneducational evangelism. 


Evangelism is uneducational to the extent that it is char- 
acterized by any of these things: Separating the act of sur- 
render to God from devotion to men; inducing a decision so 
general or so indeterminate in its content as to separate it 


64 Why the Church? 


from the specific decisions involved in the previous and the 
subsequent education of the youth; awakening aspiration 
without providing immediate outlet for it in social living; 
separating conversion from habit formation on the one side 
and from intelligent analysis on the other; occasionalism, or 
postponing specific dealing with the adolescent’s purposes to 
a particular occasion, and then crowding this occasion with 
appeals so that mental assimilation is impossible; finally, such 
use of suggestion and of emotional incitement as prevents 
rather than promotes the self-controlled organization of pur- 
poses." 

What church membership actually means is thus expressed 
by Dr. Josiah Strong: 

Failing to apprehend the social laws of Jesus, the Church 
has had no practical test of unselfish character, and has there- 
fore admitted to membership great numbers who give no evi- 
dence of being citizens of the Kingdom. Does the average 
church member aim at the largest possible service to 
humanity? Is it that for which he is longing and planning 
and sacrificing? 

So far as we can see, the less worthy part of the church 
membership (and it is a very large part) are living precisely 
as most respectable people outside the church live, namely, to 
please themselves—make money, or have a good time, or do 
whatever best suits their tastes, inclinations, or ambitions. 


The better portion of the membership is more or less 
seriously and intermittently seeking their own personal sal- 
vation. 

The best part are truly unselfish; they are living to do 
good in the world, and are the salt of the earth and of society. 
In most cases, however, they are only imperfectly instructed 
in the Christianity of Christ, and, therefore, fail to realize 
that measure of largeness, effectiveness and joy of life here 
and now, of which they are capable. The misplaced emphasis 
on life hereafter leads to an undervaluation of life here. To 
reach heaven at last has been made the great desideratum. 
As a natural result the church has been much more anxious 
to get men into heaven than to get heaven into men.’ 





*George A. Coe, ‘‘A Social Theory of Religious Education, pp. 182, 
183. 
* Josiah Strong, ‘‘The New World-Religion,’’ pp. 427, 428. 


Church Growth 65 


The Roman Catholic attitude toward the propagation of 
other religious views in a Roman Catholic country is stated 
by the Rev. Dr. John A. Ryan: 


Quite distinct from the performance of false religious wor- 
ship and preaching by the members of the erring sect, is the 
propagation of the false doctrine among Catholics. This could 
become a source of injury, a positive menace, to the religious 
welfare of true believers. Against such an evil they have a 
right of protection by the Catholic State. On the one hand 
this propaganda is harmful to the citizens and contrary to 
public welfare; one the other hand it is not among the natural 
rights of the propagandists. Rights’ are merely means to 
rational ends. Since no rational end is promoted by the dis- 
semination of false doctrine, there exists no right to indulge 
in this practice. The fact that the individual may in good 
faith think that his false religion is true gives no more right 
to propagate it than the sincerity of the alien anarchist en- 
titles him to advocate his abominable political theories in the 
United States, or than the perverted ethical notions of the 
dealer .in obscene literature confer upon him a right to cor- 
rupt the morals of the community. No State could endure on 
the basis of the theory that the citizen must always be ac- 
corded the prerogative of doing whatever he thinks right. 
Now the actions of preaching and writing are at once capable 
of becoming quite as injurious to the community as any other 
actions and quite as subject to rational restraint. . . . If there 
is only one true religion, and if its possession is the most 1m- 
portant good in life for States as well as individuals, then 
the public profession, protection, and promotion of this re- 
ligion and the legal prohibition of all direct assaults upon 
it, becomes one of the most obvious and fundamental duties 
of the State. For it is the business of the State to safeguard 
and promote human welfare in all departments of hfe. In 
the words of Pope Leo, ‘‘civil society, established for the 
common welfare, should not only safeguard the well-being of 
the community, but have also at heart the interests of its in- 
dividual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, 
but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the posses- 
sion of that highest and unchangeable good for which all 


should seek.’’ 


66 Why the Church? 


In practice, however, the foregoing propositions have full 
application only to the completely Catholic State. This means 
a political community that is either exclusively, or almost 
exclusively, made up of Catholies.’ 

Recent actual experience in the work of a City Mission 
Society is reported as follows: 

Workers in those sections of New York unfrequented by 
business men or Protestant families of standing, particularly 
those foreign language areas which make up so large a part 
of our city, are witnessing a new wave of religious bigotry 
and persecution. 

We are met with such challenges as ‘‘This is no place for 
a Protestant church.’’ A father, whose boy was found throw- 
ing a stone through the window of one of our Italian churches, 
defended the boy on the ground that the church had no busi- 
ness to be there; that ‘‘the Bronx is Catholic and Protestants 
should keep out.”’ 

This particular church has had seventeen window panes 
broken during the past two weeks and no satisfaction from the 
police in any instance.’ 

With regard to Protestant evangelistic approach to Jews, 
Rabbi Levy says: 

If we are to make ours an ‘‘Era of Understanding’’ be- 
tween the faiths it should be axiomatic that no faith is trying 
to convert the adherents of another faith, because that would 
in itself negate all possibility of the proper attitude of mind 
towards one another. ... The one who comes to convert 
another man holds that he is offering that other person some- 
thing better than he already possesses. It is an assumption 
of superiority which the other man (in this case, the Jew) 
resents. It may appear strange to the Christian who has 
not tried to get the point of view of the Jew, that this Jew 
can claim that the doctrines of his faith are quite as lofty, 
quite as spiritual as those of the Christian. He holds that 
the Jew who understands and is faithful to the teachings of 
his religion may be just as fine a man, just as true to the 





*John A. Ryan and Moorhouse F. X. Millar, ‘‘The State and the 


Church,’’ pp. 35-37. 
* Metropolitan Baptist Bulletin, New York City, June, 1924. 


Church Growth 67 


most sublime teachings of religion as the Christian. The 
spiritually minded Jew is quite the equal of the spiritually 
minded Christian in the performance of his duty to man and 
Godneea: 

The Jew goes still further in his resentment of some of 
the methods followed by Christian conversionists. He claims 
that for Christian missionaries to tempt little Jewish chil- 
dren with candies and other gifts to attend Christian Sunday 
schools, and to tempt starving men and women with offers 
of material support, if they will accept baptism, is unethical, 
because it is taking advantage of ignorance, or want, or both. 
The Jew resents the attempt to reach the weakest of his sons 
or daughters in what seems to him insidious ways.’ 

Lord Curzon in ‘‘Problems of the Far East’’ protests 
against Christians making a single statement of the Founder 
of their faith (‘‘The Great Commission’’) the basis of a war 
on other faiths. Of course, it may be questioned as to how 
far this is a fair statement of the Christian basis or method 
of foreign missions. Concerning the inevitableness of the 
missionary work of the Church Mr. J. H. Oldham says: 

The aim of missions is to bring men into the membership 
of the universal community of those who have been redeemed 
by God from bondage to the world and are dedicated to the 
fulfilment of His purpose. As the parts of the world are seen 
now to be inter-related and inter-dependent, so only a Church 
whose members are drawn from all peoples can truly serve 
the world. It must be a society which does not merely gather 
into itself individuals who leave their national and racial dis- 
tinctions and traditions behind them, but one that takes up 
these differences into its life in order that that life may be- 
come richer, more varied and more complete. In this fellow- 
ship there can be nothing of patronage, nothing of superiority, 
though differences of function, of experience, of capacity may 
have full recognition. The fundamental equality of those 
who all alike depend on God for everything they have and 





5 Rabbi Clifton Harley Levy, ‘‘Should Christians Proselyte Jews???’ 
Christian Work, January 24, 1925, pp. 113, 114. 


68 Why the Church? 


all alike strive their utmost for the coming of His kingdom 
is of the essence of the fellowship.‘ 


Dr. Kresge deals with this problem from the point of view 
of medieval and modern church practice: 


Christianity began as a simple brotherhood; and the Church 
was called into being to perpetuate this brotherhood. But 
quite early in its history Christianity became identified with 
churchanity. As soon as the Church came into possession of 
great wealth and power, she began to develop an elaborate 
system of ecclesiastical machinery. She began to dissipate 
her life keeping her machinery running. She held services, 
rather than rendered service. She substituted her own pro- 
gram for the program of the Kingdom. She became an end 
to be served, rather than a means of service. The Catholic 
communities were drained of their resources to serve the 
Church, while the Church made no effort to return an equiv- 
alent in service. More money was spent for ecclesiastical 
paraphernalia than for constructive welfare work. In the 
best days of Spain the Church spent more money for the 
candles on her altars than she spent for education. .. . 


Many of our Protestant congregations in our own country 
are spending too much money and energy in holding services 
which really do not serve. Like the Jewish Church in the 
days of the prophets and Jesus, and like the Catholic Church 
during the Middle Ages, we are still over-emphasizing the 
secondary matters of the religious program while we slight 
the fundamentals. We are still exalting the holding of ser- 
vices above the rendering of service.’ 

Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin declares his conviction on the 
principle involved in the fourth group of questions as follows: 


The Church exists to make the world the Kingdom of God. 
In the holy’city of John’s vision there is no temple, for its 
whole life is radiant with the presence of God and of the 
Lamb. In the final order there will be no Church, for its task 
is finished when God is all in all. Meanwhile the Church has 
no excuse for being except as it continually renders itself 
less and less necessary. It has to lose itself in sacrificial ser- 





*J. H. Oldham, ‘‘Christianity and the Race Problem,’’ pp. 263, 264. 
* Elijah E. Kresge, ‘‘The Church and the Ever-coming Kingdom of © 
God,’’ pp. 139, 140. 


Church Growth 69 


vice in order to save itself. It must never ask itself, ‘‘ Will 
the community support me?’’ but ‘‘Can I inspire the commu- 
nity?’’ As it seeks to do God’s will, it can count on Him 
for daily bread; a more luxurious diet would not be whole- 
some for its spiritual life. It exists only to spend and be 
spent in bringing the children of God everywhere one by 
one under the sway of His love and presenting them perfect 
in Christ, and in putting His Spirit in control of homes, in- 
dustry, amusements, education, government, and the whole 
life of human society, until we live in ‘‘realms where the air 
we breathe is love.’ * 


So also speaks Dr. Ernest F. Tittle : 


The great end that is set before the Church is the develop- 
ment, the enrichment, the Christianization of human life. 
But this great end is frequently lost sight of by people who 
compose the Church. They think of the work of the Church 
not in terms of human values, but in terms of ecclesiastical 
values. The first question that leaps into their minds when 
any new plan is proposed is not, How will this affect the lives 
of men? but, How will this affect the life of the church? 
How will it affect attendance upon the evening service or the 
morning service? How will it affect the treasury of the 
ehureh? If people are urged to give to some new project, 
will they not have less to give to the church? 


Such questions as these are not born of conscious, deliberate 
selfishness. They are frequently framed by people concern- 
ing whom many a beautiful act bears witness that in their 
personal lives they are splendidly unselfish. The psychology 
of the situation is somewhat like this: People believe in the 
Chureh. They have reason to believe in it. It has meant 
much to them. If it does not mean much to the multitude 
outside, it is plainly the fault of those who will not come in, 
not the fault of those who are in. If certain obdurate persons 
elect to remain outside the Church, so much the worse for 
them. Those who have found in the service of the sanctuary 
the spiritual nourishment which their souls require will see 
to it that nothing is permitted to jeopardize the interests of 
an institution that has meant so much to them, and which 
could mean much to many who blindly pass it by. They do 





®Henry Sloane Coffin, ‘‘Some Religious Convictions,’’ pp. 203, 204. 


70 Why the Church? 


not realize, these church-going people, that they are seeking 
first not the salvation of the community, but the salvation of 
the church. Unconsciously they are demanding of the com- 
munity that it shall feed the church, not of the church that 
it shall feed the community.’ 


Professor Harry F. Ward discusses the question, Is Chris- 
tianity revolutionary? as follows: 


At a shop meeting the men pushed forward one of their 
number to ask the preacher a question. ‘‘You’ve bothered us 
long enough with your questions,’’ they said. ‘‘Now here’s 
a man who can answer you. Go for him!’’ His first ques- 
tion was theological. His second was this: ‘‘Was Jesus 
a rebel?’’ This is the vital issue with the social radicals: 
Is Christianity content with the world as it is or does it de- 
mand a thoroughgoing transformation? Is it working for 
reconstruction? This question demands that the missionary 
propaganda search its heart. What is it after? To build 
churches, to increase Sunday schools in order to multiply the 
number of saints in heaven? Or does it seek to make the 
civilization of man over into the civilization of God—to trans- 
form human society into the Kingdom of God upon the earth 
in order that thus man may come to know God and enjoy Him 
forever? Is Jesus still a rebel against civilization as He finds 
it? If His purpose is carried out in human society will the 
things of which the workers complain remain? Will there 
be poverty or crime or war or preventable disease? Will 
there be bad housing and a big death-rate? Will there be 
starvation wages and big fortunes, long hours and idleness? 
When Christianity understands its missionary purpose it 
finds that it involves the complete transformation of the 
whole of human life, individual and social. With the evil 
that is in the world there can be neither truce nor compromise. 
There is no other propaganda for social reconstruction which 
goes so far or demands such thoroughgoing change as the 
propaganda of Jesus.” 


Again Dr. Ward says: 
Their [the critics of social evangelism] favorite antithesis 





*°Ernest F. Tittle, ‘‘What Must the Church Do to Be Saved?’’ pp. 
23, 24. 
20 Harry F. Ward, ‘‘The Gospel for a Working World,’’ pp. 148, 149. 


Church Growth 71 


is whether the Church is to save the social order or to save 
souls from hell, whether we need the arousing of a new social 
conscience or a revival of religion, whether the world is to be 
saved by perfect laws or by redemption, by a new industrial 
system or by individual regeneration. The answer, of course, 
is, ‘‘By both.’’ These things are not in antithesis but are 
inseparable complements. There is no ‘‘either or’’; it is 
“‘both and.’’ There is no individual apart from the social 
organism, there is no social organism apart from the indi- 
vidual. The simple gospel on the lips of Jesus assumes this 
great fact and deals with both in all their relationships. 

The one way of saving the social organism is through its 
constituent parts, which are individuals; the only way the 
individual can come to full salvation is by redemption of the 
social organism in which he subsists. To accomplish this 
joint end, men must be evangelized as social beings. They 
must be saved in all their group relationships, not as indi- 
viduals abstracted from the world of reality, withdrawn from 
contact with their fellows and set apart in some arbitrary sys- 
tem of relationships with God. The fundamental error of 
those who insist that an evangel which talks about social con- 
ditions is neglecting the fundamental task of ‘‘getting the 
individual right with God’’ is that they are thinking of 
an individual who does not exist except in the realm of 
theology. ... 

The evangelism that carries the whole word of the Master 
and follows His method will not stop to consider results to 
the Church. Its results cannot be measured in terms of church 
gains. The value of the social ministries of the Church can 
never be determined by what they do or fail to do in bring- 
ing more people into the Church. This is no fair standard 
to apply to them. Their purpose is social, and while they 
will open points of contact for individual, personal ministry, 
their main results will be social—to be seen and felt but not 
to be counted. A city missionary society put a man at work 
among the Jews and then wanted to dismiss him at the end 
of the year because he had not built up a self-supporting 
church. What results would be secured in China by such a 
policy? It would dismiss even Jesus as an incompetent blun- 
derer, an unprofitable servant. The Church must demand 
and secure efficiency in its efforts, but efficiency is revealed 


72 Why the Church? 


inadequately and sometimes not at all by the figures that show 
gains in converts and income. The love of statistics possesses 
the modern churches as an evil spirit, and unless it be exor- 
cised it will presently carry them far from the path of Jesus 
and run them headlong into the oblivion in which the world 
of tomorrow will bury those religious organizations that can 
find no bigger goal than the development of their own ec- 
clesiastical life.” 


Dr. John Douglas Adam has this to say with reference to 
the bearing of the character qualities of the individual Chris- 
tian on the renewal of social values: 


The fundamental social contribution of organized Chris- 
tianity must be the bringing out into social life of the renewed 
and increased economic value of genuine Christian character. 
The creation of genuine Christian experience means the in- 
creased economic value of an individual to society. Without 
religion man naturally tends to crave more from society than 
he can contribute to it, in order to satisfy his restless inner 
life. On the other hand, when a man has a genuine Christian 
experience, he tends to seek his supreme satisfactions not 
from society, but from the unseen. His material cravings 
shrink through the expansion of his spiritual satisfactions. 
He tends to demand less from society, and to give more, 
because he brings a more efficient personality to the social 
situation. A new simplification of physical desire, a new 
mental concentration, a new conscientiousness, ali make for 
a higher economic value. 


While purely material democracy tends towards making 
the individual unsound in his economic value to society, 
genuine Christian experience tends to increase and give 
permanence to his economic value. Think of the vast eco- 
nomic burden fiung upon society by godless living, and then 
think of the sound economic reserves springing from true 
Christian living. No sound economist can ignore the funda- 
mental economic value of Christian character. 


Then, too, how can there be a renewal of the values of 
society except through religion? Organized Christianity, if 





“Harry F. Ward, ‘‘Social Evangelism,’’ pp. 55, 56; 134, 135. 


Church Growth 73 


it is spiritually vital and virile, will perform the moral equiva- 
lent of the astronomer in the observatory, who corrects the 
time in the town clock and the watches of the people. The 
renewal of social values proceeding from lives lived in the 
presence of God is a far more fundamental social contribution 
than legislation, even at its best. For legislation must ever 
be the result of public opinion, and public opinion which is 
not educated by the wisdom of God simply imprisons itself 
in its own deadening legislative enactments.. The social impli- 
cations of Christian character must ever be the supreme 
asset of society, for they make for individual economic sound- 
ness, the renewal of social values, and provide the moral 
impulse towards progress and solidarity.” 

Canon Green, in the preface to his book on ‘‘ Personal 
Religion and Public Righteousness,’’ insists that all effective 
social advance depends on the religious dynamic as exempli- 
fied in personal life and character. 

It is indeed a fair and necessary question to ask whether 
the advance, which we so earnestly desire, in public righteous- 
ness, will be attained without a great advance in personal 
holiness. Ten years ago, writing on the topic of personal 
religion, I suggested that the tasks before the Church were: 
(1) the re-statement of the one Faith; (ii) the reunion of 
Christendom; (iii) the conversion of the world to Christ, and 
(iv) the application of His teaching to social needs. To these 
tasks we must today add two more at least, namely (v) the 
refounding of civilization, shaken by the war, and (vi) the 
discovery of a way to international brotherhood. Is our 
religion adequate to these tasks? Are we good enough? 
.... It is my own deep conviction that a great advance in 
personal holiness will alone supply the necessary power in 
which the tasks before the Church will be performed... . 

It may well be that some, anxious to do something to help 
a suffering and distracted world, longing, as they will say, 
to ‘‘get to work to help others,’’ will be impatient with my 
insistence on the need for personal holiness, personal religion. 





2% John Douglas Adam, ‘‘The Approach to the Modern Mind,’’ in 
‘‘Hvangelism in the Modern World,’’ pp. 85, 86. 


74 Why the Church? 


If any reader does feel that impatience I can only repeat 
that this whole book is inspired by nothing else but the con- 
viction that personal holiness is an absolutely necessary pre- 
liminary to all effective social service. For what the world 
really wants is not you or me, but God. And He can shine 
only through a sanctified personality, and work only through 
a surrendered will. When we have perfectly learned that 
truth no triumphs will be too great for us to achieve.” 


Dean Inge, of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, has this to say: 


The Church has its own work to do, without trying to en- 
lighten political experts on their own subjects. The method 
of Christianity is the method of Christ Himself—never to 
speak or think of men in masses, never to clean the outside 
of the cup while neglecting the inside; never to try to reform 
men by reforming their institutions, but to appeal straight to 
the heart of the individuals. From within, not from without, 
comes all that exalts or defiles the character. Make the tree 
good, and its fruit will be good. Make men and women good 
Christians, and they will either make their institutions work, 
or alter them. This method of inwardness is perhaps the 
most distinctive and characteristic thing in Christianity. 
The leaven will, it is hoped, leaven the whole lump in time; 
but the Christian method is slow, far too slow for impatient 
and hot-headed people. It is a slow remedy, but a real one; 
whereas the method of altering institutions without even 
attempting to elevate individual character, which is the 
avowed program of Socialism, is no remedy at all. The old 
evils will all reappear. ‘‘The Kingdom of God is not eating 
and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the 
Holy Ghost.’’ “ 





4 Peter Green, Canon of Manchester, ‘‘Personal Religion and Publie 
Righteousness,’’ pp. ix, x. 

4 The Very Rev. W. R. Inge, Morning Post (London), January 1, 

25. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE CHURCH SERVING THE COMMUNITY 


Questions 
1. Community NEEDS AND ACTIVITIES. 
What are the outstanding needs of your own local com- 
munity? What practical activities does your church un- 
dertake in order to serve the community? With what 
results? What community needs are not yet met? 


2. RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH. 

Is your church’s first duty to its own members or to the 
community as a whole? Why? Does the Church stand 
in the minds of the people of your community as the cham- 
pion of large constructive social ideals? If so, what ideals? 
If not, why not? How determine whether the duty of 
the church to its own members or to the community is the 
more important in any given situation? 


3. THE CHURCH AND OTHER COMMUNITY AGENCIES. 

Should the Church as an organization engage in such 
activities as the promotion of health centers, recreation 
centers, the care of the poor, settlements, hospitals, men’s 
and women’s hotels, ete., or should it rather inspire people 
to render such service through other agencies? If it 
should sometimes act directly and at other times through 
other agencies, what should determine which course to 
follow and when? If you assume that the community 
itself should do some of the things which your church is 
now doing, what steps can your church take to insure that 
the transfer is for the good of the community as a whole? 
If there are functions which other organizations are per- 
forming which should be undertaken by the church, how 
can the transfer best be brought about? 

75 


76 Why the Church? 


4, TH CHURCH AND COMMUNITY EVILS. 
What, if anything, should the Church do as a body with 
respect to community evils, like bad housing, civic corrup- 
tion, discrimination against classes and races, the sale of 
liquor and drugs, bad prison conditions, unwholesome 
amusements? What responsibility, if any, has the subur- 
ban church in relation to city community problems? 


5. THe CHURCH AND EcoNomic LIFE. 

What, if anything, has the Church as an organization to 
do regarding the economic life of the community, e.g., 
with respect to wages, hours, strikes? When, if ever, 
should it take a stand with reference to such questions? 
Should it go further and advocate the reconstruction of 
the industrial system? If so, should reconstruction be 
pressed through individual Christian effort or collectively 
by the Church? If through the former, what agency can 
be used to this end? 


6. APPARENT COMPETITION. 

What is the significance, both to the church and to the 
community, of the increasing tendency on the part of 
both men and women of ability to transfer their principal 
public service from activity in the church to activity in 
social and political organizations? Some say that they 
leave unessential activity in the churches to undertake 
more significant leadership in other organizations. Does 
the Church, because of its origin and the source of its 
power, have a prior claim on the time and energies of its 
members, regardless of the quality and degree of oppor- 
tunity for service which it offers them? 


7. Tum CHURCH AND PUBLIC OPINION. 
In what ways is the Church affecting general public opin- 
ion locally or nationally? Do the churches of your com- 
munity express themselves on local questions clearly and 


The Church Serving the Community 717 


effectively? In what ways can public opinion be influ- 
enced most effectively by a local church or group of 
churches? Is action by an official board sufficient? Is 
it or is it not desirable that on great ethical questions 
which confront the nation the churches should be able to 
speak with a single voice? By what trustworthy methods 
can it be ascertained whether the churches are ready to 
speak with a single voice on this or that question? On 
questions on which there is a great divergence of judgment 
and conviction among Christians, e.g., pacifism, who is 
qualified to speak for the churches? Can the Church 
afford to be silent on such an issue? Is the average church 
too parochial in its outlook? If so, why? To what extent 
and how should its outlook be changed? 


Comment 

When this study has been opened by listing the needs of 
your community, the community activities of the church, and 
the needs that remain to be met, you will be ready to con- 
sider the fundamental questions which immediately follow 
and which are at the heart of the problem of this section. 

Is the church’s first duty to its own members? One church 
answered this question by putting up a sign that read: ‘‘This 
church exists for the sake of the people outside of it.’’ 

Should the Church as an organized body engage in com- 
munity activities, attack community evils, take a stand on 
economic questions? | 

In answering these questions it would help if the leader 
should place on a blackboard in separate columns the reasons 
pro and con, including particularly such as grow out of 
actual experience. 

Mr. E. GC. Lindeman has traced the institutional evolution 
of the church and shows how: 

Step by step the Church relinquished parts of its original 


or accrued functions. In the United States the Church was 
explicitly separated from the State, and from the sphere of 


78 Why the Church? 


politics. Soon after the beginnings of the new nation, educa- 
tion was taken from the Church, and a little later philan- 
thropy followed. The Church had long since abandoned 
economic control. 


He argues against the ‘‘institutional’’ church in its pro- 
vision of playgrounds, cafeterias and other such agencies of 
service : 


From the sociological viewpoint there are two possible 
dangers in this movement. In the first place it may prevent 
division of labor in such service. In the second place the 
church at times makes of these services vested interests, which 
will later make it difficult for specialized agencies to function 
properly in the community. There is an added objection 
from the viewpoint of the church itself, and that is the fact 
that the church’s fundamental function of religious, or 
spiritual, motivation, is likely to suffer when it is encumbered 
with the doing of many things. 

In small communities where there is but one church or in 
communities where there are a small number of churches it 
may be expedient for the church to render certain social ser- 
vices. If this is done with an idea based upon the assump- 
tion that specialized agencies will be brought to the com- 
munity later to take over these services, such a program must 
be recognized as one of great value. 

The law of the division of labor is based upon the following 
premises : 

a. <A specialized agency can perform services more efficiently 
than a general one. 

b. The institution which initiates a program and then de- 
velops other agencies to take over this program, thereby 
retains more energy and time for its specialty. 

e. A generalized program is likely to detract from the insti- 
tution’s primary function. 

d. The specialized agencies have been called into existence 
as a result of the increasing complexity of modern social 
living. Their mission will be seriously hampered if gen- 
eralized agencies promote similar programs. 

e. The specialized agencies are here, and most of them are 


1%. C. Lindeman, ‘‘The Community,’’ p. 108. 


The Church Serving the Community 79 


likely to remain. General programs, promoted by insti- 
tutions, are destined to produce serious overlapping and 
duplication of work. 

A consideration of the law of the division of labor indicates 
that modern institutions grow by the loss of function, and 
not by the increase of function. In other words, they increase 
the intensity of their programs when in healthy growth; con- 
versely, they extend their programs when they have become 
pathological and out of harmony with modern social process.’ 

‘“The Church and the Community,’’ by Ralph E. Diffen- 
dorfer, is full of suggestions along the line of the following 
quotation from the Foreword: 

Christians are only beginning to realize the mighty force 
which lies inherent in these local churches, separately and in 
cooperative groups. The Church has proved so worthily its 
power to cultivate its membership as a field for moral and 
spiritual growth that it gives confidence and hope that it will 
be aroused speedily to an appreciation not only of its latent 
power as a social force, but also of the right and duty of 
leadership in community affairs. How else can morals and 
religion come to dominate our modern complex social life? * 

In considering the Church’s duty in relation to economic 
questions, take account of what British soldiers are reported 
to have held as recorded in ‘‘The Army and Religion.’’ 

Practically all the more thoughtful young men of the wage- 
earning class feel that there is something utterly perplexing 
in the fact that the Church counts for so little in connection 
with social and economic reconstruction. They will never 
really fully believe in any Church that has not something to 
say about that matter, and that does not say it fearlessly 
regardless of consequences.” 

How a group of English Christians dealt with a strike is 
recorded by Dr. Henry Hodgkin. This may help in the dis- 
cussion of Question 5: 

As I write there comes to my mind a meeting for worship 
held not many miles from London, and when all minds were 


2 Ibid., pp. 109, 110. 
* Ralph E. Diffendorfer, ‘‘The Church and the Community,’’ p. xi. 


4<«The Army and Religion,’’ p. 214. 


80 Why the Church? 


turned to the danger of a certain national strike developing 
into revolution. The meeting was being held after the manner 
of Friends, and prayer was offered for all parties and for a 
solution in accordance with the mind of Christ. Among the 
fifty or sixty worshippers were those whose sympathies were 
with the owners, and others who took the side of the strikers. 
Words were spoken which called us back to the deeper mean- 
ing of the strife, the grave issues involved, the thought of 
our Father’s love and His will for His children. When the 
period of worship came to an end there was a spirit in the 
meeting that instantly responded to a suggestion that we 
should remain and discuss the situation. Light seemed to 
be given as to immediate action, and three persons were asked 
by the meeting to proceed to the strike headquarters. Nego- 
tiations between the parties had broken down. The three per- 
sons were able to get into touch with both sides and to keep 
open the doors which had been officially closed until, within 
a few days, room was made for a more formal reopening of 
negotiations. A small group, under the guidance of the 
Spirit, had been able to perform a very real service towards 
bringing peace into a situation where industrial war had 
already begun. If the Church were more eager to know the 
divine leading and more sensitive to the needs of the world, 
would not services of this kind be a common rather than a 
rare phenomenon? * 

The same author discusses an American situation as an 
illustration of what is likely to happen when churches act 
unitedly in industrial crises: 


A united Church, then, will be able to speak out on grave 
social evils and to call upon the nations to repent; she will 
arouse the public conscience; she will be fearless of the con- 
sequences to herself in loss of prestige and income; she will 
be ready to be misunderstood and will fear more when all 
men speak well of her than when she is persecuted as her 
Master was. When the Pittsburgh capitalists withdrew their 
support from the Young Women’s Christian Association on 
account of its fearless social program, they were doing what 
would be constantly done by various groups if the Church 
were united in her passion against social injustice. Nothing 





‘Henry T. Hodgkin, ‘‘The Christian Revolution,’’ pp. 205, 206. 


The Church Serving the Community 81 


wouid unite the Christian bodies in a more splendid unity 
than a campaign of fearless exposure of evil that opened all 
alike to bitter attacks and left all in financial difficulties. 
This is the path toward Church unity that seems to me full 
of real hope. Dare we take it?° 


The last chapter of ‘‘The Church and Industrial Recon- 
struction’’ is entitled ‘‘What the Church Can Do,’’ and con- 
tains many suggestions that will assist in answering the fifth 
group of questions. The following quotation Lears also on 
the questions of the third group: 


The extent to which the Church as an institution shall itself 
engage in practical activities of social betterment is one which 
cannot be answered by a generalization. This must neces- 
sarily be determined in large measure by the special condi- 
tions in which a given church finds itself. Every local church 
should have its own forms of social ministry, which it carries 
on in the interest of the community welfare, and the particu- 
lar conditions in certain communities may lay upon the 
ehureh the responsibility for a great program of practical 
service. Certainly if there are human needs which are not 
being met by other agencies, they present to the church a 
clear call either to undertake a program of special effort in 
its own name or to see that other means of meeting the need 
are called into being. 


The distinctive function of the Church, however, in the 
securing of a better social order does not lie in a multitude 
of independent administrative efforts, but in being the never- 
ceasing inspiration of such efforts by all Christian men in 
their various capacities as employers, employees, or socially- 
minded citizens. The Church should by its preaching so 
effectively hold up the Christian ideal, and make so clear what 
is involved in its application to the existing social conditions 
of the present day, that it will be constantly sending out its 
members to give themselves whole-heartedly to social better- 
ment and thus be the great dynamic of a host of practical 
endeavors toward a more Christian society.’ 





‘Ibid., p. 208. 


_ ™The Committee on the War and the Religious Outlook, ‘‘ The Church 
and Industrial Reconstruction,’’ pp. 233, 234. 


82 Why the Church? 


In considering the question of whether thoroughgoing in- 
dustrial reconstruction is necessary, the report of the Arch- 
bishop’s Committee on Christianity and Industrial Problems 
reaches the following conclusion: 


When every allowance has been made both for the good 
qualities elicited by the industrial system and for the inci- 
dental defects which are likely to be found in any system 
whatever, we, nevertheless, find it impossible to resist the 
conclusion that, in certain fundamental respects, that system 
itself is gravely defective. It is defective not merely in the 
sense that industrial relations are embittered by faults of 
temper and lack of generosity on the part of the employer, of 
the employed, and of the general public alike, but because 
the system itself makes it exceedingly difficult to carry into 
practice the principles of Christianity. Its faults are not the 
accidental or occasional maladjustments of a social order, the 
general spirit and tendency of which can be accepted as satis- 
factory by Christians. They are the expressions of certain 
deficiencies deeply rooted in the nature of that order itself. 
They appear in one form or another not in this place or in 
that, but in every country which has been touched by the 
spirit, and has adopted the institutions, of modern industrial- 
ism. To remove them it is necessary to be prepared for such 
changes as will remove the deeper causes of which they are 
the result. 

We cannot, therefore, agree with the view sometimes ex- 
pressed which would allow Christians to take for granted the 
general economic arrangements of society, and would confine 
their attention to supplementing incidental shortcomings and 
relieving individual distress, in the belief that if men will 
live conscientiously within the limits of established industrial 
arrangements, without seeking to modify them, the result 
will be such a society as can be approved by Christians. .. . 
The solution of the industrial problem involves, in short, not 
merely the improvement of individuals, but a fundamental 
change in the spirit of the industrial system itself.’ 

In answering the last question of the fifth group, ask how 


much truth there is in F. W. Robertson’s words uttered 





® Archbishop’s Fifth Committee of Inquiry, ‘‘Christianity and In- 
dustrial Problems,’’ (1919), pp. 51, 52. 


The Church Serving the Community 83 


sixty-five years ago and decide what, if they be truth, the 
Church ought to do. 


Brethren, that which is built on selfishness cannot stand. 
The system of personal interest must be shivered into atoms. 
Therefore, we, who have observed the ways of God in the 
past, are waiting in quiet but awful expectation until He 
shall confound this system, as He has confounded those which 
have gone before. And it may be effected by convulsions 
more terrible and more bloody than the world has yet seen. 
While men are talking of peace and of the great progress of 
civilization, there is heard in the distance the noise of armies 
gathering rank on rank; east and west, north and south, are 
rolling towards us the crashing thunders of universal war.’ 





®F. W. Robertson, ‘‘Sermons,’’ Third Series, Ninth American from 
Fourth London Edition, p. 252. 


CHAPTER X 
CHURCH ORGANIZATION 


Questions 


1. THm ORGANIZATION OF THE LOCAL CHURCH. 
Make a list of the separate organizations existing in your 
own church. 


a. 


b. 


How many of these have distinctive fields and tasks 
and how many overlap? 

What needs exist, if any, which your church is not 
organized to meet, but which it should be prepared to 
meet? 

Do you think that your church is over-organized or 
under-organized ? 


Evaluate the local church organizations of which you are 
a member from the standpoint of efficiency and analyze 
the causes of their inefficiency, where such exists. 


2. GENERAL CHURCH ORGANIZATION. 
Make a list of the organizations, denominational and other- 
wise, to which your church is related. 


a. 


In how far have these organizations helped you directly 
or indirectly to live the Christian life? 


b. In how far have they helped your church or hindered 


Cc. 


it in performing its total task? 

What evidence is there, if any, that official church or- 
ganization, general or local, seriously affects the pro- 
phetic character of the Church as a whole or of its 
ministers, favorably or unfavorably ? 

To what extent, and why, is the local church respon- 
sible for the work of its own agencies? For the work 

84 


Church Orgamezation 85 


of the agencies of the denomination as a whole with 
which it is affiliated? 


3. WOMEN IN CHURCH ORGANIZATION, 

Why do so many denominational and interdenominational 

organizations still fail to provide for the effective partici- 

pation of women in their national boards, conferences and 

committees? Is such participation desirable? 

a. What qualities in some men incapacitate them for 
working democratically with women? 

b. What qualities in some women prevent their working 
democratically with men? 

ec. Some say that the most satisfactory democratic dis- 
cussion will not take place unless both men and women 
take part in it. What do you think? 

d. What adjustments, if any, in the local church or in 
denominational procedure in general should be brought 
about in this connection? 


4. CHURCH UNITY. 

Are denominational divisions actually a help or a hin- 

drance to the realization of the Christian way of life in 

the world? Are they necessarily so? 

a. If you believe that some kind of church unity should 
be brought about, would friendly cooperation (general 
or local) be more or less effective than organic church 
union? Give your reasons. 

b. If you believe in church unity of any sort would you 
put the first emphasis on bringing about local or na- 
tional unity ? 

ce. What measure of unity has been already attained? 


Comment 
Estimate the truth in the following oft-quoted protest of 
William James against ‘‘big’’ organizations and consider 


86 Why the Church? 


what bearing it has on some of the questions in this section: 


As for me, my bed is made! I am against bigness and 
greatness in all their forms, and with the invisible molecular 
forces that work from individual to individual, stealing in 
through the crannies of the world like so many soft rootlets, 
or like the capillary oozing of water, and yet rending the 
hardest monuments of man’s pride, if you give them time. 
The bigger the unit you deal with, the hollower, the more 
brutal, the more mendacious is the life displayed. So I am 
against all the big organizations as such, national ones first 
and foremost; against all big successes and big results; and 
in favor of the eternal forces of truth which always work in 
the individual and immediately unsuccessful way—under- 
dogs always till history comes, after they are long dead, and 
puts them on the top.’ 

It is commonly said that the churches are over-organized. 
See whether this is true of your own church. As to general 
overhead organization and appeal there is frequent protest 
by pastors and local churches. This point of view was ex- 
pressed in an article by Dr. Willard L. Sperry in which he 
protested against the multiplicity of appeals in behalf of all 
sorts of good causes outside of the churches. Concerning the 
appeals of denominational organizations: 

He would say to his denominational representatives quite 
candidly that he can no more substitute the World Move- 
ment of our denomination for the idea of God than he can 
substitute the trichina or Senegambia. And that is what, at 
times, it seems to him that he is expected to do. Organizing 
teams, and appointing captains by their tens and hundreds, 
and fine-tooth-combing the parish once more is not necessarily 
having a religious experience; and the parish minister is on 
the ragged edge of concluding that about the quickest way 
to undereut the whole support of the Church-at-Large is to 
let its programs and machinery get into the foreground and 
stay there. For men will not permanently, or even long, ac- 
cept as a substitute for the public worship of God a congre- 
gational committee meeting on Sunday morning to discuss 
in detail the blue-print plans of the New Jerusalem. 





* William James, ‘‘Letters,’’ Vol. 2, p. 90. 


Church Organization 87 


The parish minister insists upon some restoration of his 
ancient liberty of prophesying, not because he is indifferent, 
or wishes his church to be indifferent, to any and all of these 
claims on time, thought, service, and money, but because he 
feels the danger of religious short-sightedness, and even of 
fanaticism, in the urgent clamor of these many voices. He 
believes that if men can be helped to true and adequate ideas 
of God, godly men, to whom the task comes immediately home, 

. will maintain all... valid causes outside the Church 
and inside.’ The 


In considering this problem do not fail to consider the 
churches’ extra parish responsibilities, and the necessity for 
strong organization if a world-wide Christian program is to 
be developed and maintained. 


In discussing the question of the cooperation of men and 
women in church work the point of view expressed by Miss 
Maude Royden should be taken into account: 


It is a sense of something that is to me indescribably foul 
in this opposition to the spiritual ministry of women that 
makes us so conscious that it must be overcome. In the 
political fight I have met with brutality, with coarseness, even 
with violence, but I never met in the course of the political 
struggle with that certain quality of insult and abasement 
that I have met in the ecclesiastical world. I am aware that 
- there are thousands of people who oppose that thing for which 
I stand for reasons that are, if not sufficient, perfectly honest 
and good and sincere; but there is also a certain uncleanness 
of imagination in the minds of some of those who are our 
most determined opponents, a quality of uncleanness about 
womanhood and about sex, which is our last worst enemy, and 
which must be defeated if the relations between men and 
women are to be as sane, as wholesome, as sweet, as lovely as 
God surely meant them to be when we are told that: ‘‘God 
created man in His own image, in the image of God created 
He him; male and female created He them.’’’ 





? Willard L. Sperry, ‘‘A Parish Minister’s Declaration of Indepen- 
dence,’’ Atlantic Monthly, January, 1921. 

®*Maude Royden, ‘‘Women and the Gospel of Christ,’’ Christian 
Work, August 16, 1924. j 


88 Why the Church? 


When considering the questions involved in Christian unity 
consider whether the best approach is to be made along the 
line of creed and organization or of life and work. The fol- 
lowing questions submitted by the World Conference on Faith 
and Order have a special bearing on the question of unity 
from the point of view of the Christian way of life: 


1. Is it agreed that the ideal of individual life is such as is 
represented by the Beatitudes and by Saint Paul’s account 
of the fruit of the Spirit, and that this is a specifically 
Christian character and stands opposed to worldliness, 
self-assertion and ambition which are un-Christian ? 

2. Is it agreed that we unite in believing in the absolute value | 
of every human soul in the sight of God, and in the 
equality of all men before God as the subjects of one re- 
demption offered to all because all have sinned ? 

5. Is it agreed that this equality of men as subjects of the 
redemption in Christ does away in the Church with the 
distinctions of race, color and class, and, if so, in what 
sense? 

4. Is it agreed that, inasmuch as all men have one Father and 
are therefore brethren, the basis of all social ethic is the 
principle of love? 

d. Is it agreed that the principle of love involves that in all 
human society the objects of fellowship and service must 
be pursued, and rivalry and ambition disowned as un- 
Christian ? 

6. Is it agreed that property must be regarded as a trust and 
not as a possession ? 

7. Are there any other elements of the Christian ideal which 
it would be important for the Conference to affirm? ‘ 


Dr. Rauschenbusch is insistent that: 


To become fully Christian and to do their duty by society 
the churches must get together. The disunion of the Church 
wastes the funds entrusted to it, wastes the abilities of its 
servants, and wastes the power of religious enthusiasm or 
turns it into antisocial directions. Civil war is always bad; 





*World Conference on Faith and Order, ‘‘The Christian Moral 
Ideal’? (Fourth Series of Questions for Preliminary Discussion). 


Church Orgamzation 89 


it is worst when a nation is threatened by outside enemies 
and the very existence of the fatherland is in danger. Some 
Churches are so far apart on essential matters that union is 
hopeless for the present. But the great body of Protestant 
Christians in America is simply perpetuating trivial dissen- 
sions in which seareely any present-day religious values are 
at stake.* 


A mediating view between denominationalism and organic 
church union is presented by Dr. Charles S. MacFarland: 


Federal unity is stronger and more vital than the first 
form of unity, represented by the Vatican, because it is unity 
with freedom, and because unity is stronger without uni- 
formity than with it. The social difference between the unity 
of the Federal Council and the unity of Rome is also thus: 
With federal unity the Church may give herself for the sake 
of the world, regardless of what becomes of herself; she may 
give herself for the sake of humanity and not for the sake of 
herself; while under the unity of Rome she is obliged first 
of all to take care of her own life. We must be willing to 
save our life by losing it. 


Federal unity, however, recognizes the two principles of 
progress, differentiation and coherence. It recognizes that 
the Kingdom of God does not mean solitariness on the one 
hand or uniform consolidation on the other. It is simply 
genuine cooperation without regard to the ultimate result to 
ourselves. It is not trying to get men to think alike or to 
think together. I¢ is first willing that the army should be 
composed of various regiments with differing uniforms, with 
differing banners, and even, if necessary, with different bands 
of music at appropriate intervals, provided they move to- 
gether, face the same way, uphold each other, and fight the 
common foe of the sin of the world with a common love for 
the Master of their souls, for each other, and for mankind. 
It is unity without uniformity; diversity without divisive- 
ness; comprehensiveness, not competition or compulsion.’ 





* Walter Rauschenbusch, ‘‘Christianizing the Social Order,’’ pp. 463, 
64. 


*Charles 8. MacFarland, ‘‘Progress of Church Federation,’’ pp. 
23, 24. 


90 Why the Church? 


A most helpful statement of the stage reached in move- 
ments toward unity can be found in Dr. William Adams 
Brown’s book, ‘‘The Church in America,’’ Chapter XIIT 
(‘‘The Churches Getting Together’’). 


1. 


2. 


CHAPTER XI 
THE CHURCH AND THE STATE 


Questions 
CHURCH MEMBERS AND POLITICS. 
Should a church member have more or less to do with 


politics than a non-church member? Give reasons and 
indicate how, if at all, the political activities of a church 


‘member should differ from those of a non-member. 


WHEN IDEALS CONFLICT. 

If the State adopts a policy which the Church regards as 
contrary to the Christian way of life what is the Church 
to do? What is the individual to do? Under what con- 
ditions, if any, is the Church justified in supporting a 
national policy involving war or economic imperialism? 
What is the duty of the individual Christian? 


CORPORATE OR INDIVIDUAL ACTION. 

In acting on such matters as child labor, tariffs, free 
speech, the liquor traffic, the League of Nations, the alleged 
misuse of the Monroe Doctrine, or other economic and 
political issues, should church members function as indi- 
vidual citizens or corporately as an organized body? Some 
say the Church as an organization should never take a 
stand against political evils; others maintain that the 
Church loses its soul whenever it does not act courageously 
in such matters. Why do people take these different 
attitudes? Should the Church as an organization ever 
express itself on a question that is at issue between the 
major political parties? If not, why not? If so, under 
what circumstances? Does a moral question that becomes 
an issue in a political campaign thereby pass into a sphere 

91 


92 


Why the Church? 


where the Church may not deal with it? If church mem- 
bers should act in some instances individually and in 
others collectively, how decide when the corporate and 
official and when the individual action is to be taken? If 
the Chureh should not act corporately, has it responsi- 
bility which it should otherwise discharge? Give reasons. 
It is claimed that in general many churches have taken 
a different attitude toward the liquor question than was 
taken in the matter of illegal business practices and anti- 
social industrial practices. If this is true, why has it 
been the case? Is it justifiable? 


THE CHURCH AND LEGISLATION. 

Should the Church try to enforce its moral standards 
through legislation by the State? Why? Why not? 
Should it seek to force its standards on citizens who may 
not freely accept those standards? If so, why? If not, 
on what grounds, if any, may it advocate what it con- 
ceives to be Christian ideals in legislation on questions 
like prohibition, divorce, child labor? 


THe CHURCH AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. 

How far does the present international character of the 
Church (or lack of international character) affect the 
possibility of the Church’s functioning in the develop- 
ment of a Christian way of life among nations? What 
activities could your church promote which might make 
some contribution to the establishment of a more Christian 
international order? 


Comment 


This section raises questions that of late have been very 


much to the fore. ‘“‘Getting out the vote,’’ for instance, is 
said to be one of the duties of the churches. The general non- 
participation of Christians in practical politics is widely con- 
demned or condoned according to the point of view. In reach- 


The Church and the State 93 


ing a judgment on the first question keep in mind that polities 
is the machinery by which the corporate will of the people 
is expressed in the affairs of government, the administration 
of public affairs in the interest of the peace, prosperity and 
safety of the State. 


Dr. William Cunningham, Archdeacon of Ely, asserts: 


The duties of political communities lie in the mundane 
sphere, and the action of a Christian citizen does not neces- 
sarily differ from that of a man of any other religion, or of 
none. The doing of justice is a thing in which all good men 
of any religion will readily join; the forecasting of what is 
‘wise in the interests of the community is an intellectual effort, 
and differences of opinion as to what is expedient need have 
no direct connection with differences of religious belief. Chris- 
tianity can, however, supply a motive force which will lead 
a man to see that he is not justified in attempting to live for 
himself alone, but is bound to do his best for other men as 
well, and to make use of his privileges on their behalf. Chris- 
tianity may do little to help us to forecast the precise nature 
of what is best for the community at any place or time; but 
it does afford an incentive for trying to see our duty and for 
persisting in doing it.’ 


Dr. Elijah E. Kresge says: 


The first thing the Church must do in her efforts to make 
the nation Christian is to fill her own membership and the 
citizens of her immediate community with a keen sense of 
their political duty and responsibility. Government is one 
of the most fundamental of social disciplines. Until the 
millennium comes there will be need of stable government of 
some kind. The members of the Church must be made to 
feel their duty to a discipline so fundamental as government. 
The Church must take just as great pains to make her mem- 
bers good citizens of the United States of America as she 
does to make them fit subjects of the New Jerusalem. She 
must make her members feel that politics is just as much a 
department of Kingdom service as Bible study or missions.’ 





1 William Cunningham, ‘‘ Christianity and Politics,’’ pp. 229, 230. 
? Elijah E. Kresge, ‘‘The Ever-coming Kingdom of God,’’ p. 2380. 


94 Why the Church? 


The question might be asked as to just how this keen sense 
of political duty and responsibility, called for by Dr. Kresge, 
is to be brought about. Two points of view are set forth in the 
Copec report on Politics and Citizenship: 


Even among those who recognize the necessity of the State, 
and the legitimacy of its authority, there is sometimes evident 
a tendency to treat public affairs as so fundamentally tainted 
with anti-Christian interests that it is impossible for a Chris- 
tian to allow himself to be in them. So far as this means that 
conditions may arise in which a Christian may be unable to 
associate with the existing organization of government, with- 
out in effect denying his religious convictions, there is an 
element of truth involved. But the tendency to which we 
refer often goes much further than this. It suggests that the 
religious life is, in its very nature, divorced from the actual 
organization of political societies. Its interests are eternal, 
spiritual, other-worldly, and as such have no bearing on polli- 
tics, which are of the earth, earthy.’ 


On the other hand: 


The function and purpose of the State is the establishment 
and maintenance of some moral order in life, a moral order 
for which justice is a convenient name, and its authority rests 
in the end upon this and upon nothing else. It is, therefore, 
impossible for a man who believes that life has a spiritual, 
a moral character, to rid himself of the responsibility of doing 
_ all that he can do to enable the State to realize the purpose 
for which it exists, and to embody in its actual working the 
spiritual principles which he holds to be right. . . . If citizen- 
ship is a right, it is equally a responsibility, a sacred and 
‘spiritual responsibility ; and, in participating in or abstaining 
from, any particular form of political activity, the Christian 
citizen must be mindful of that responsibility. . . . A sense 
of personal responsibility for the use or non-use of the vote 
is the first condition of health in a democracy.‘ 


It is the second group of questions that leads into the heart 
of a most urgent matter, that of the relation of the 





*C.0. P.E.C. Commission Report, ‘‘Polities and Citizenship,’’ pp. 
14, 15 
“ Ibid., 15, 17. 


The Church and the State 95 


Church to war. The discussion that centered around Defense 
Day and the resolutions of church bodies concerning war 
show how much this question is coming to mean to the 
Christian conscience. Professor William Adams Brown sum- 
marizes the doctrine of Ritschl, the German theologian, which 
Professor Brown says is the doctrine of the modern State: 


The supreme attribute of the State is sovereignty, and since 
there is no super-State to which all others are subject, each 
nation is ethically justified in asserting its own rights against 
others whenever it honestly believes them to be imperiled. 
Thus preparedness, in the sense of military armament, be- 
comes the patriotic duty of every loyal citizen, and the pos. 
session of an army and navy strong enough to assert any 
rights to which the nation may reasonably lay claim is the 
foundation-stone of foreign policy.’ 

Dr. Brown summarizes the opposing view of the pacifists 
as follows: 

They not only believe that Jesus’ principles are applicable 
to State as well as to Church, but that they are applicable 
now. They insist that Jesus has laid down a definite method 
by which His principles are to be applied, which, if practiced 
by all Christians, would render possible the immediate reali- 
zation of the Christian social ideal. In particular this method 
precludes the taking of human life for any purpose what- 
ever. It outlaws war not only for the selfish purpose of moral 
aggrandizement or conquest, but even for self-defense, and, 
what is still more difficult to accept, in defense of others. 
The fact that the State has approved a war cannot alter its 
essentially un-Christian character. On so fundamental an 
issue the individual conscience must assert itself. To yield 
to the majority would be to deny the faith.’ 

He offers a third view (presumably his own) in these words: 

To fight for oneself is one thing; to fight for others quite 
another; to fight as an assertion of the fundamental prin- 
ciples of liberty and justice, which refusal to fight would 
imperil, another thing still. There is no doubt that to mul- 
_ titudes in the late war the issue presented itself in the latter 





5 William Adams Brown, ‘‘The Church in America,’’ p. 160. 
*Ibid., p. 161. 


96 Why the Church? 


form. War seemed to them so great an evil that it was hardly 
possible to conceive a greater. Yet a time had come when 
to refrain from fighting would involve them in a worse evil 
still, and so with a clear conscience they gave themselves to 
the service of their country and believed that in so acting 
they were serving Christ as well.’ 


Dr. T. Rhonda Williams pleads for some measure of com- 
promise on the basis of ‘‘Render unto Cesar the things which 
are Cesar’s’’ where personal ideals and State policy conflict: 


It is far better to consent to pay a little tribute to Cesar 
and get something done for God than to retire in a sort of 
personal pride of perfection which leaves society unserved. 
The way to get rid of Ceasar, so far as Cesar is unjust, is 
not by refusing to pay tribute, but by doing our level best to 
get higher principles recognized in his realm and higher prae- 
tices established, and to exercise infinite patience on the re- 
forms that do not come as quickly as we desire. This was the 
way which early Christianity took in regard to slavery. The 
early Christian slaves paid tribute to Cesar by continuing 
obedience to their masters, but worked for a higher ideal of 
social relationship by putting love into their life, and they 
were moulding the force that would ultimately destroy 
slavery. One cannot always do the highest and most right 
thing that one knows; sometimes the only way to serve that 
highest is to do something that is not the highest or most 
right. 


If this is thought to be a somewhat dangerous principle - 
one must remember that its safeguard is this: that we always 
maintain an unflinching loyalty to the highest in our hearts, 
and that all our compromises in the realm of Cesar are made 
for the sake of a progress that lies beyond them, not for the 
sake of our comfort, or convenience, or advantage, but for 
the sake of helping mankind upward. So long as these are 
our intentions and ideals, faithfully served in the inmost 
sanctuary of the soul, none of our compromises will be harm- 
ful; they will all be to the good. ‘‘Man’s reach exceeds his 
grasp, or what’s Heaven for?’’ Compromises are all right 





"Ibid., p. 161. 


The Church and the State 97 


so long as they are on the upward road and made with the 
eye and the heart on the goal.* 


Mr. Glenn Frank writes in The Nation: 


The State may spend its time dilly-dallying with the prob- 
lem of war; the Church dare not. If in the future the 
Church is to be more than an exhorting ambulance-driver in 
world politics it must choose now between Jesus and the 
generals. 

It is so easy for the Church to say that as an organization 
it will not bless any war, and then follow such an assertion 
with a weasel phrase such as ‘‘except wars of defense and 
wars waged in a righteous cause.’’ As if any nation ever 
admitted that it fought a war that was not in self-defense or 
in a righteous cause! ... 

I do not say that we may not find ourselves maneuvered 
into a position that will compel us to enter another war even 
within the lifetime of my generation. All I say is that if we 
find ourselves dragged into war by the stupidity or cupidity 
of political or industrial leadership, let us go into war honestly 
admitting that it is an ugly job that has been made necessary 
by stupidity and cupidity, and not insult the name and dis- 
grace the Church of Jesus of Nazareth by fooling ourselves 
into thinking that we are entering a spiritual crusade. Even 
a war waged for what appears a righteous cause is a spiritu- 
ally destructive process.” 

On the general question of the authority of the State the 
Roman Catholic view is stated in the Pastoral Letter of the 
American Hierarchy, 1920: 


The State, then, has a sacred claim upon our respect and 
loyalty. It may justly impose obligations and demand sacri- 
fices for the sake of the common welfare which it is estab- 
lished to promote. It is the means to an end, not an end in 
itself; and because it receives its power from God it cannot 
rightfully exert that power through any act or measure that 
would be at variance with the divine law, or with the divine 
economy for man’s salvation. As long as the State remains 
within its proper limits and really furthers the common good, 
it has a right to our obedience. And this obedience we are 





*T. Rhonda Williams, Christian Work, March 15, 1924, p. 381. 
*Glenn Frank, The Nation, June 4, 1924, p. 638. 


/ 


98 Why the Church? 


bound to render, not merely on grounds of expediency but 
as a conscientious duty. ‘‘Be subject of necessity, not only 
for wrath but also for conscience sake.’’ 

The end for which the State exists and for which authority 
is given it, determines the limit of its powers. It must re- 
spect and protect the divinely established rights of the indi- 
vidual and of the family. It must safeguard the liberty of 
all, so that none shall encroach upon the rights of others. 
But it may not rightfully hinder the citizen in the discharge 
of his conscientious obligation, and much less in the perfor- 
mance of duties which he owes to God. To all commands that 
would prevent him from worshipping the Creator in spirit 
and truth, the citizen will uphold his right by saying with 
the Apostles: ‘‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’’” 

It should be said, perhaps, that the quotation above does 
not adequately indicate the emphasis on the primacy of the 
Church in relation to the State, as often asserted by Roman 
Catholic authorities. 

A Protestant view is that approved by the Copec Confer- 
ence in connection with its consideration of the report of 
the Commission on Politics and Citizenship: 

The purpose of the State is to bind men together in a justly- 
ordered social life, and its authority ought to be generally 
accepted by Christians. The duties of citizenship are a sacred 
obligation for Christian people. The authority of the State 
is limited by its functions, and ought to be challenged by the 
Christian conscience only in the name of God. Christians 
should be willing, while their strength lasts, to spend and be 
spent in its service.’’™ 

This Commission said further: 


In making the choice between obedience and rebellion, a 
Christian will naturally consider whether or not the action 
of the State actually makes, or tends to make, the practice of 
the Christian life difficult; whether or not it encourages im- 
moral conduct or thought; what probability there is of estab- 
lishing a system of government more satisfactory in these re- 





* Quoted by John A. Ryan and Moorhouse F. X. Millar, ‘‘The State 
and the Chureh,’’ pp. 237, 238. 
“The Proceedings of C.0.P.E.C., p. 225, 


The Church and the State 99 


spects, and what will be the cost, in moral values, of estab- 
lishing it?” 

On the relation of the Church to the State Dr. Rauschen- 
busch says: 

Ideally the State is the organization of the people for their 
larger common interests. Actually all States have been or- 
ganizations of some section of the people to protect their 
special interests against the rest. Ideally the chief function 
of the State should be the maintenance of justice. Actually 
the chief function of most States has been the maintenance 
of existing conditions, whatever they happened to be. The 
State is the representative of things as they are; the Church 
is the representative of things as they ought to be. In so far 
as it is loyal to this duty it must be in perpetual but friendly 
conflict with the State, pushing it on to ever higher lines of 
duty. Nothing better could happen to any State than to 
have within it a Church devoted, not to its own selfish cor- 
porate interests, but to the moral welfare of humanity, and 
nudging the reluctant State along like an enlightened peda- 
gvogue.” 

The questions of the third group involve a general issue 
on which there is much difference of opinion. Consider the 
point of view set forth in the following quotation from an 
address by David Lloyd George, then Prime Minister of 
Great Britain, in an address to the clergy in Cardiff, 1916: 


It seems to me to be the sphere of influence of the churches, 
not to support particular parties, not to advocate particular 
measures of reform, but to create an atmosphere in which it 
will be impossible for anybody to remain a ruler of the realm 
unless he deals with those social problems. ... The first 
thing we have got to do is to create a temper, a spirit, an 
atmosphere that will compel men of all parties to deal with 
these problems, whichever party is in power for the time 
being. The responsibility of the churches is this: The 
Churches of Christ in this land guide, control and direct the 
conscience of the community. No interest, however great it 
may be, can long withstand the resolute united opposition 





#8 Tbid., p. 10. 
#8 Walter Rauschenbusch, ‘‘Christianity and the Social Crisis,’’ pp. 
186, 187. 


100 Why the Church? 


of the churches. Public opinion in this land invariably re- 
sponds to the call of the United Churches. . . . The function 
of the Church is not to engage in party brawls. It is not to 
urge any specific measure. It is to create an atmosphere in 
which the rulers of this country, whether in the legislature 
or the municipalities, not only can engage in reforming these 
dire evils, but in which it will be impossible not to do so. 

Dr. Cunningham takes a somewhat different attitude. He 
says: 

To produce the desired result it is necessary not only to 
ereate an atmosphere, but to agitate it into a gale. Such 
agitation must almost necessarily involve the clergy in active 
participation in party politics, by signifying approval of 
the measures of one party and denouncing the neglect of the 
other. . . . It is specially to be feared that the Christian min- 
ister who feels called upon to use the pulpit for political agi- 
tation, is going outside the terms of his commission; he has 
a trust imposed upon him, and it is his duty to declare the 
eternal truth which has been revealed to man by our Lord. 
But in connection with the passing of any legislation the 
questions which arise are chiefly matters of expediency and 
of forecasting the probable results of the measure. These 
are at best matters of opinion. The preacher’s opinion may 
be a good opinion, or it may be a mistaken opinion, but it 
has no: pretensions whatever to be a declaration of Divine 
Truth. 

In F. W. Robertson’s Sermons these words occur: 

Christianity is the Eternal Religion which can never become 
obsolete. If it sets itself to determine the temporary and 
the local, the justice of this tax, or the exact wrongs of that 
conventional maxim—it would soon become obsolete; it would 
be the religion of one country, not of all.” 

On the question of social legislation an Episcopal Synod 
Conference held at Atlantic City in 1924 took the following 
action : 

The Conference would affirm its conviction that the busi- 
ness of the Church embraces the whole scope of life. And 





“William Cunningham, ‘‘Christianity and Polities,’’ pp. 193, 197. 
* Frederick W. Robertson, ‘‘Sermons,’’ Second Series, Third Ameri- 
ean from the Fifth London Hdition, p. 35. 


The Church and the State 101 


inasmuch as legislation registers the focusing and formulation 
of public opinion with respect to social needs, it is the business 
of the Church to see to it that as far as it has influence, such 
legislation should have a Christian soul. Therefore, when 
any question arises with definite bearing upon the moral or 
spiritual welfare of the community, the Church as a corporate 
body should give active support to the best concrete pro- 
posals tending to promote social welfare. As illustrating the 
kind of proposals which should enlist this corporate support 
we would cite the Permanent Court for the Adjustment of 
International Disputes and any worthy meusures looking 
toward improvement in the equipment and conduct of our 
state and county institutions. 


President Coolidge, at the unveiling of the Francis Asbury 
monument in Washington, D. C., October 15, 1924, had this 
to say about the dependence of government upon the develop- 
ment and maintenance of the spiritual qualities and values 
of life: 


Our government rests upon religion. It is from that 
source that we derive our reverence for truth and justice, 
for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind. 
Unless the people believe in these principles, they cannot 
believe in our government. There are only two main theories 
of government in the world. One rests on righteousness, the 
other rests on force. One appeals to reason, the other appeals 
to the sword. One is exemplified in a republic, the other is 
represented by a despotism. The history of government on 
this earth has been almost entirely a history of the rule of 
force held in the hands of a few. Under our constitution 
America committed itself to the practical application of the 
rule of reason, with the power held in the hands of the 
people. 


This result was by no means accomplished at once. It 
came about only by reason of long and difficult preparation, 
oftentimes accompanied with discouraging failure. The abil- 
ity for self-government is arrived at only through an extensive 
training and education. In our own case it required many 
generations and we cannot yet say that it is wholly perfected. 
It is of a great deal of significance that the generation which 


102 Why the Church? 


fought the American Revolution had seen a very extensive 
religious revival... . 

The government of a country never gets ahead of the re- 
ligion of a country. There is no way by which we can substi- 
tute the authority of law for the virtue of man. Of course, 
we can help to restrain the vicious and furnish a fair degree 
of security and protection by legislation and police control, 
but the real reforms which society in these days is seeking 
will come as a result of our religious convictions, or they 
will not come at all. Peace, justice, humanity, charity—these 
cannot be legislated into being... . 

We cannot depend on the government to do the work of 
religion. We cannot escape a personal responsibility for 
our own conduct. We cannot regard those as wise or safe 
counselors in public affairs who deny these principles and 
seek to support the theory that society can succeed when 
the individual fails.” 





7° President Calvin Coolidge, ‘‘Religion the Safeguard of a Free 
Nation,’’ The Christian Advocate, October 23, 1924. 


CHAPTER XII 
THE CHURCH AND THE CHRISTIAN WAY OF LIFE 


Questions 
1 Tue [pDEa. 
If a person who knew nothing of Christianity were to ask 
you if there is a Christian way of life which, if followed, 
would lead to the solution of our racial, international and 
industrial problems, what would you tell him? 


2. THe SOURCE. 
If he desired further to know just what the Christian way 
of life is, would you refer him to any or to all of the follow- 
ing, and what help, if any, might he expect to get from 
each ? 
The life and teachings of Jesus. 
The teachings or creeds of the Churches. 
The standards of practice of those who call themselves 
Christians. 
The practice of the smaller number who take Chris- 
tianity seriously as a way of living. 


3. THE PRINCIPLES. 
Are there general ideas or principles of Christian social 
living to which all Christians are presumably committed ? 
If so, what are these? 


4, Tue APPLICATION. 
Is it possible to determine what these general ideas or 
principles involve when face to face with a concrete situ- 
ation today? Is there, e.g., a ‘‘Christian’’ way of running 
a factory? Of deciding what to do about war? Of solv- 
ing a delicate problem of race adjustment? If so, how 
are we to discover it and to secure agreement and action 
on it? 
103 


104 Why the Church? 


al 


5. Tue CONCLUSION. 


Does life today make for individualism or for social solid- 
arity and cohesion? Which tendency is desirable for so- 
ciety? Whatever be your answer, is the Church an effec- 
tive agency in promoting the objective you regard as the 
more desirable? What more might the Church do to 
bring about the good life? Just what would you like to 
see done to and by the Church in this connection? 


How is the general social sense and conscience of a people 
to be cultivated? Ought it to be so cultivated? What 
forces and agencies among us are making this contribu- 
tion to life? How would you appraise the Church in rela- 
tion to other forces and agencies in this regard? What 
special advantages does it have, if any, to this end? What 
special disadvantages? Would your answers be the same 
with respect to the cutlivation of international-minded- 
ness among any people? Just what, if anything, is the 
Church doing to promote the general social sense and 
conscience? What to promote international-mindedness? 
What to promote the sense of human solidarity in general? 
What should it be doing? 


Comment 


It has been a question with the Commission as to whether 
this section should come at the beginning or at the end of 
the study. It has been put at the end in order that the other 
sections might be studied without the possibility of any 
slightest bondage to a set of predetermined assumptions. The 
issues raised in this section are, however, the basic ones in 
the whole Inquiry, and whatever sections any group may be 
compelled to omit, this should not be one of them. In order 
that the minds of the group may be wholly unbiased in their 
approach to these questions no citations of source material 
are offered. The questions themselves appear to be sufficient. 








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